


In Plain Sight

by Rod



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom, McFly
Genre: Fusion, Hogwarts Seventh Year, M/M, Secret Identity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-15
Updated: 2013-01-19
Packaged: 2017-11-25 13:47:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 38,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/639511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rod/pseuds/Rod
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four Hogwarts boys have to hide out in the Muggle world.  Their idea of 'hiding' involves becoming a boy band.  Subtle they aren't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Harry Potter and friends belong to J.K. Rowling. McFly belong to themselves. The rest is my fault.
> 
> Notes: This is not my fault. Really. I merely observed that Tom Fletcher bears a striking resemblance to Tom Felton, and that Harry Judd has a lightning bolt shaped scar on the side of his head. The conclusion was inescapable.

Gregory Goyle usually liked the summer holidays. Since there were no lessons, no homework, no annoying first years getting under foot, and best of all no Potter making life miserable, summer usually meant hanging around with Vince and Draco, enjoying the sunshine and generally avoiding his parents as much as possible.

Unfortunately the summer after Greg's sixth year at Hogwarts contained none of those joys. Draco had vanished along with Snape after the attack on the school, something Greg avoided thinking about as much as he could given that he'd helped to cause all that damage. The weather persisted in being as gloomy as Greg's moods, raining on those rare occasions he ventured outside. He didn't even get to see Vince much, though they still owled each other regularly, since his father insisted on filling his days with "further training to make sure that you're fit for your glorious inheritance."

Further ranting was more like it. Greg's father spent his whole time gloating over the fall of the Malfoys, telling Greg how much he'd always hated Lucius, how the Goyles could now take their rightful place at You-Know-Who's right hand, and just what they would do to Draco if they ever found him, "to prove their worth." It was lucky that Greg had learned to keep an absolutely straight face many years earlier, because just the thought of some of what his father planned to do to his schoolyard leader made him want to throw up.

The other thing his father obsessed over was Harry Potter. Of course. Everyone obsessed over Potter, even if he was just a speccy git who'd been lucky enough to escape from You-Know-Who a couple of times. All the teachers showed blatant favouritism to him (apart from Snape, which wasn't the endorsement it used to be), the Daily Prophet didn't know whether it loved him or hated him, and every Death Eater wanted to be the one to drag him in front of the Dark Lord. A year ago, Greg would have reckoned that Scarhead deserved what was coming to him. After he'd been close enough to see Fenrir Greyback claw Bill Weasley's face to ribbons, he wasn't so sure. After listening to his father's exultant news of how they were slowly but surely taking apart Perfect Potter's secret defenses, and just what would happen to him afterwards, Greg was pretty much convinced that no one was enough of a git to deserve that.

It was pure bad luck that Greg happened to be outside when his father came to crow about how they'd cracked it, and Potter only had hours left to live. He'd been trying to enjoy at least a little bit of peace and quiet while it wasn't raining, so of course his father had to come out and scatter his thoughts just then. He'd managed to mumble something appropriate, not at all enthused at the idea of the bane of his school life being dead, when the second disaster of the morning occurred. Draco Malfoy apparated in, looking like he'd been dragged through an entire maze full of hedges backwards, staggered towards him and managed to wheeze out the word "Help..."

That was as much as Draco had time for before Gerard Goyle hit him with a full body bind. "Excellent," he crowed. "Now at the moment of the Dark Lord's triumph we will be able to hand him the last reminder of the failures of his old lieutenants. The time of the new order is here, and the Goyle family will take its rightful place at His right hand.

"But while we have the Malfoy boy here, we can avenge ourselves for all the slights those snivelling toadies have inflicted on us. How many times did Lucius involve me in his schemes just to avoid getting his pretty hands dirty? How many times has this sorry excuse for a pureblood left you to face the consequences of his actions? It's time for revenge, my boy; let him know that you're the one with the power now. You know how much you need to practise the _cruciatus_ curse."

Greg managed to put on a fairly normal respectful face with an anticipatory grin while his father ranted, but the whole idea made his stomach churn. He'd never actually successfully cast the _cruciatus_ , and he was pretty sure that he didn't really want to right now. Draco may not have exactly treated him well but he was a friend, of sorts, and Greg didn't like the idea of doing that to him. It wasn't like he had many friends, after all. Draco was staring at him in mute appeal, adding to Greg's feeling that this was wrong. He nodded anyway, since his father would expect it, and saw Draco's eyes close in resignation.

The two seconds it took him to draw his wand felt like the longest two seconds in Greg's entire life. That was all the time he had to decide his future and plan what to do about it. It was a wrench; Greg had lived his entire life being told what to do by other people, and he liked it that way. He didn't want responsibility, just a nice, safe path laid down for him to follow and not have to worry about. Now here he was, deciding whether Draco lived or died.

The stunning spell hit his father squarely between the eyes.

Draco seemed confused as Greg hurried over and cast the counter-curse on him. "Greg? What...?" he asked weakly.

"No time," Greg said. Two seconds may not have been much time to plan, but at least he knew the next few things he had to do. "This won't hold him for long," he said, casting a binding of his own on his father, "we have to grab a few things and get out of here."

Greg practically dragged Draco indoors. There was no time to pack, so he just intended to get some food from the kitchen before they left. He grabbed more when it became obvious how little Draco had eaten recently, and how much he needed to stop and eat.

He used the delay to owl a brief message to Vince, knowing that his friend would be the first person anyone else went after to find out where Greg might go to hide. "Plan B" was all he wrote on the parchment. Vince would know exactly what he meant. Plan B had served them well over years of coping with the fallout of things going pear-shaped on them; "run and hide" had worked often enough, and it was about all either of them could do now.

Leaving Draco stuffing his face with sausage rolls, Greg ran upstairs to find Hercules, his owl, and send the message off. Since that meant being up in his bedroom, he paused to grab a change of clothes and stopped in front of a long, flat case. That wasn't something he wanted to leave behind. It was the one thing that was his, not something for school or whatever Draco wanted done or anything like that. He had never even taken it outside his bedroom before, knowing that his friends would only mock him about it, but he couldn't leave without it.

Drawing his wand, Greg cast the most careful shrinking spell that he could. He wrapped the shrunken case carefully in a pair of socks before shoving it in his pocket and hurrying back downstairs. That was about as much spare time as he had, he reckoned.

Down in the kitchen, Draco seemed to have finished off the food. He was just sitting there, eyes half closed and all but asleep in his chair. Greg had been vaguely hoping that Draco would be back to his old self by now, ready to issue orders and take the weight off Greg's shoulders. No chance, it seemed; Greg was still going to have to carry on with his half-arsed excuse for a plan.

"It's time to go," was all he said.

"Where?" Draco asked dully. Greg told him. Draco blanched. "You can't be serious?" he said.

"We haven't got time to argue," Greg said flatly, holding out his hand. "Now are you coming or not?"

Draco looked at the hand for a moment, then caved. "OK," he said almost meekly, and took Greg's hand in his own.

Greg closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and concentrated hard on an address he'd heard all too frequently in the last few days.

******

Harry Potter was enjoying his summer holiday about as much as usual. Which is to say he was hating every minute of it.

Life in Privet Drive wasn't as awful as it had been for the Boy Who Lived, at least not once he'd made sure that Uncle Vernon knew that he was old enough to cast magic legally. That didn't make spending any time at the Dursley's any more pleasant, though; his aunt and uncle alternately ignored him and glowered at him, and had no compunctions about ordering Harry around while he still had to live with them. Dudley was the only one who behaved any differently around Harry, and that was mostly because both of them took every opportunity to avoid each other.

The familiar atmosphere of hate and distrust weighed heavily on Harry this summer. He knew he had to stay with his blood relatives for the protection spells to keep Voldemort and his Death Eaters away, but the end of that time had always before meant seeing his friends again, finding out what had been happening to the Wizarding world in his absence, and ultimately going back to Dumbledore's eccentric but secure and friendly protection. That wouldn't happen this year; with Dumbledore dead, Harry had a hard time making himself believe that there would be a Wizarding world for him to go back to.

Dumbledore was dead. It seemed strange after all that had happened to him that that one fact could change everything. Then again, Dumbledore had been the first person to show any kindness to Harry, and the only one who seemed to be able to stand up for Harry against all the stupidity of the Ministry. Without him, Harry didn't know if there was anyone who had enough power to keep him out of Rufus Scrimgeour's clutches, never mind safe from Voldemort.

With thoughts like that for company it was little wonder that Harry became more and more apathetic as the summer wore on. He didn't consciously stop caring about himself, but with no one who did care there to cheer him up, it felt more and more to Harry that there was no hope and why should he bother trying.

When one day a loud hammering started up on the front door, and Uncle Vernon bellowed at him to find out who was there and send them away, the Wizarding world was the last thing on Harry's mind. So to say he was surprised to open the door and find a very impatient Gregory Goyle and Draco Malfoy there was something of an understatement.

He was too surprised to say or do anything as Goyle pushed his way inside, towing Malfoy with him. "You've got to get out of here," Goyle said, closing the door behind him. "You-Know-Who has figured out how to get round your protections, and he'll be here in a bit."

Harry was halfway up the stairs before it dawned on him exactly who was ordering him about. "Hang on," he said, turning back down to confront Goyle and Malfoy, "what are you talking about? Voldemort can't even find me here. For that matter, how the hell did you know where I live?"

"Potter, there's no time—" Goyle began, but a bellow from Uncle Vernon cut him off.

"Boy! Who is it and what do they want?" Vernon Dursley appeared in the door to the hallway, apparently having decided that Harry was slacking off. He eyed Malfoy and Goyle with a caution that turned to outright hostility as he took in Malfoy's stained and torn school robes. "More of your freak friends?" he asked, starting to turn red.

"Um," Harry said intelligently. "Yes, Uncle Vernon, these are a couple of my school, er, friends, Draco Malfoy and Gregory Goyle." Quite why he was formally introducing his much-loathed relative to his equally-loathed school bullies he wasn't entirely sure, but in less than a minute this situation was already more bizarre than anything that had happened at Hogwarts. Maybe they'd get together and form a new 'We Hate Harry' club or something.

Goyle seemed to be thrown by Uncle Vernon's arrival, but Malfoy rose to the situation. "Delighted to meet you," he murmured with a tired-looking smile, "and apologies for the disturbance. I'm afraid I'm not at my best right at the moment."

Harry narrowed his eyes. Something was wrong here. Malfoy seemed to be barely going through the motions, Goyle seemed to be the one giving the orders... if Crabbe had wandered in playing with a GameBoy things couldn't have been more out of whack. "You didn't answer my question," he told Goyle pointedly.

Goyle visibly regrouped. "You-Know-Who's spent the last few weeks figuring out the magics protecting you," he said, not noticing Uncle Vernon flinch at the mere mention of magic. "According to my father, he's cracked it. I reckon you've got half an hour tops to get out of here. Less if someone's found Dad in that flowerbed," he finished in a mutter.

Harry stared at him. "You're serious," he said eventually. Goyle nodded. "Bloody hell. Why?"

"I felt like it," Goyle said with a shrug, and Harry had to admit it made as much sense as anything else in his life right now, even if he didn't really believe him. "Look, Potter, we haven't got time to argue. If you feel like facing off against the Dark Lord, that's your look-out. I'm getting Draco out of here."

"You're not going anywhere without me," Harry said firmly, making up his mind there and then. "Uncle Vernon, you really need to take Dudley and Aunt Petunia away from here. Go and visit Aunt Marge or something. The person who's on his way, he's the one who killed Mum and Dad. He wouldn't think twice about killing you, any of you, just for being here."

There was a squeak from Aunt Petunia as she scurried up and clutched Uncle Vernon's arm. "The man who killed Lily, he's coming here?" All three boys nodded. "Vernon, we have to leave!"

"I'll not be driven out of my own home by one of those freaks," Uncle Vernon spluttered, but for once Aunt Petunia cut him off before he could build a full head of steam.

"Vernon," she said pleadingly, " _he killed Lily._ "

There was a long moment as the two of them just stared at each other, and it struck Harry suddenly that his aunt and uncle, two people who had always been complete ogres to him, really did love each other. They knew each other well enough to have a silent conversation like that, the way that Molly and Arthur Weasley could say things to each other with just a nod and a wink that never made it into their constant chatter. Would he ever have something like that, Harry wondered with a twinge of jealousy. Would he find a girl to be the one for him? Would he live long enough to have a chance?

"Right you are, my petal," Uncle Vernon said gently, breaking the moment. "We'd best pack quickly."

Aunt Petunia smiled at him gratefully, then turned. "Duddikins," she called out, "we're going to visit Aunt Marge."

"I'm packed," Dudley called back from the top of the stairs, a small suitcase ready beside him. He glared at a surprised Harry. "I don't need to be told twice."

"Right." Harry took a moment to drag himself back to reality. Given that reality included Dudley being efficient, Malfoy and Goyle being helpful, and Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia not literally arguing themselves to death, this was more of an effort of will than normal. Fortunately he didn't have a lot of packing to do, since most of his school stuff — everything that was important to him — was still in his trunk. "I'll just grab my wand and my stuff and we'll be off."

"What?" Harry turned on the stairs again, letting Aunt Petunia push past him on her way to pack, to see Draco Malfoy looking animated for the first time since he had arrived. "You didn't have your wand when you opened the door? Are you insane, Potter? Have you got some kind of death wish? I could have killed you!"

Harry smiled at him. "No, you couldn't," he said cheerfully. "I know you better than that."

Malfoy looked almost frightened at that, causing Harry no small amount of gloating that he managed to keep off his face. Mostly. "How?" Malfoy asked.

Goyle looked around nervously. "We haven't got time for this," he said urgently. He glanced quickly at Harry, then turned his attention back to Malfoy. Harry took that as his cue, and bounded up the stairs as Goyle tried to calm Malfoy down again.

In his room, Harry sent Hedwig off with a hastily written note to Ron and Hermione, and instructions to stay with them. She nipped at his fingers crossly, but seemed mollified by an owl treat and Harry's fervent promise that he'd catch up with her. Then it was just a simple matter of piling his few unpacked possessions into his trunk, shrinking it down to a manageable size, and then hurrying downstairs before Malfoy and Goyle got up to anything.

Incredibly, Aunt Petunia seemed to have packed one suitcase for herself and another for Uncle Vernon in the same time.

Harry insisted on making sure the coast was clear before the Dursleys drove away. Fortunately whatever weirdness that was passing for luck with him seemed to be holding; no Death Eaters popped out from behind the bushes as the Hogwarts boys peered nervously around the front door.

As the car disappeared around the corner of Privet Drive, Harry sighed. This was it; the summer might not be through according to the calendar, but it was over for him. He could feel his final battle with Voldemort approaching; not yet, maybe not even for months, but he somehow knew that everything was building towards that. From everything that Dumbledore had taught him in the last year, Harry knew that it was now up to him to find and deal with the horcruxes.

He turned towards his unlikely allies. "We're going this way," he said decisively.

Goyle seemed to be happy to follow along, but Malfoy baulked. "Where are you taking us?" he asked.

"Somewhere safe," Harry told him. "And no, I'm not going to tell you where until we get there."

"How can we apparate somewhere when we don't know where we're going?" Malfoy demanded.

Harry smiled. "We're not going to apparate, we're going to take the bus. There should be one going past the end of the road in a minute." He waited for a moment while Malfoy got his head around the fact that Harry wasn't even talking about the Knight Bus, and spoke again while Malfoy was still spluttering. "This way we aren't leaving any magical signatures for the Death Eaters to follow. By the time they think to look for us using Muggle transportation, we'll be safe."

Malfoy seemed to almost collapse in on himself at that. Goyle looked concerned again, and put one arm around Malfoy's shoulders. "It's all right, Draco," he said. "I'll take care of you."

All of Harry's quiet gloating over having Malfoy doing what he was told dried up at that sight. This wasn't his schoolyard enemy any more, it was someone who had been put through a wringer and been proven stronger than Harry had thought. He put a hand on Malfoy's arm consolingly.

"Malfoy, Goyle, I promise you this: I won't let anything bad happen to you that I can possibly prevent."

Malfoy didn't seem to know quite what to make of that, but the look of gratitude on Goyle's face was enough. Harry smiled back at him, then looked out at the traffic.

"Come on, the bus is here."

******

"You've gone stark staring bonkers!"

Ron Weasley wasn't taking events well. Getting a message from Harry that read 'Emergency. Meet at Order HQ now' was bad enough, but seeing him turn up with a pair of Slytherins was just too much. "They must have put him under an _imperius_ or something."

"You know perfectly well that it doesn't take long for Harry to throw off an _imperius_ ," Hermione scolded.

"There aren't any other enchantments on him I can see," Mad-eye Moody growled, though he didn't lower his wand. In the narrow entranceway of 12 Grimmauld Place he effectively stopped the three boys coming any further into the house. "He could still be someone polyjuiced, though."

"Oh for pity's sake." Harry sounded about normal, at least for when he was frustrated. Ron still couldn't believe that he'd done this of his own free will. "I told you it was an emergency, and I couldn't leave these two on their own."

"So you brought the Ferret and one of his goons to Order HQ?" Ron shouted.

Malfoy bristled at him briefly as if it was barely worth the effort, but Goyle started looking around even more nervously than he had when Moody first pointed a wand at him. "The Order of the Phoenix?" he squeaked.

Harry rubbed his eyes tiredly. "Which they didn't know until you just told them, Ron."

"Oh."

"Look, if I tell you something only the three of us know, will you believe me?"

Reluctantly, Ron nodded and pushed forwards. Harry leaned in and whispered in his ear, "There was no _Felix Felicis_ in your pumpkin juice."

Well, everyone thought that, but Ron knew that only he, Harry and Hermione knew there might be any reason to think otherwise. "Mate, what's going on?" he asked in confusion.

"It's a long story," Harry said grimly. Nearly an hour later, Ron still wasn't sure he believed that story. After Harry had told his tale, then stopped everyone doing more than glowering at Goyle while he told them what he knew, Kingsley Shacklebolt had set off to scout out Privet Drive. He had returned quickly enough with confirmation; apparently the neighbours were claiming that the house had been destroyed in a gas explosion. Everything seemed to be panning out the way that Goyle had claimed, but Ron still couldn't shake the feeling that the Slytherins were up to something.

"So what's he been doing?" he finally asked, indicating the strangely quiet Malfoy who was rather mechanically spooning soup into his mouth. Ron's dislike of the conniving little sod hadn't been improved any when his mother had given in to her normal urges and started pressing food on him.

Harry shrugged and looked at Goyle. Goyle shrugged too. "Dunno," he said, keeping his voice down in an obvious effort not to disturb Malfoy. "I hadn't seen or heard from him until this morning."

Hermione frowned. "Well it's obvious that he hasn't been home recently. His clothes are a mess, and can you imagine Malfoy looking like that if he didn't have to?"

"I've been home," Malfoy said quietly, startling them all. "I've b-been h..." He couldn't finished the word; tears started streaming down his face and his shoulders shook so much that for a moment Ron wondered whether he was under a _tarantella_ curse.

Harry was the first to react. He crouched beside Malfoy, putting a hand on his shoulder. "They were waiting for you, weren't they?"

Malfoy nodded. "I spent weeks hiding from them," he said when he could talk again, "I don't know how they kept finding me." Hermione pursed her lips, but Ron shot her a warning look. Now was not the time to interrupt. "I thought if I was quick, the wards know me, I could be in and out... but they were waiting. And mother..."

He started shaking again, and Ron closed his eyes. Harry had told him and Hermione all about that overheard conversation, how You-Know-Who was threatening to kill Narcissa Malfoy if Draco didn't kill Dumbledore somehow or other. "Bastards."

"Ronald, language!"

"Sorry, Mum, but that's..." Ron couldn't find the words without swearing, so he shut up. Instead he moved to Malfoy's other side, Hermione and Goyle with him. "It's..." alright? No, Ron thought, it wasn't alright, not for Malfoy. "You're safe here."

Harry shot him an amused look, payback for their earlier argument. Ron did his best to ignore him. He knew that he tended to jump in and say things without thinking, but right now there were more important things to be doing.

"I think what young Mister Malfoy most needs now is some rest," Ron's mum said in her best mothering voice. "Ron, be a darling and show him upstairs. I've made up the far room on the second floor. You'll have to share with him," she said apologetically to Goyle, who nodded readily. "I'll rustle up some pyjamas from somewhere, I think there are some of Sirius' old things we can resize." She headed off herself, a very familiar look in her eye.

By the time Goyle and Ron managed to get the emotionally exhausted Malfoy upstairs, a pair of black pyjamas was waiting for them on one of the beds. Ron hoped they fitted. His mother had a good eye for sizing charms, but you never could tell.

"I'd better..." Goyle gestured vaguely at Malfoy.

Ron nodded; it would be better for Malfoy right now to have someone familiar around, and Ron didn't fit the bill. "There's a bathroom across the hall," he said, "and Harry and I are right next door if you need anything. And," he hesitated a moment, then stuck out his hand. "Thanks. For saving Harry, I mean."

Goyle shuffled in embarrassment, then took Ron's hand. "S'okay," he mumbled. "Thanks for helping Draco, Weasley."

"Ron. My friends call me Ron."

Goyle's smile, big and genuine, told Ron that for once he had jumped in and said the right thing.

******

"They must be tracking wand-use like the Ministry do," Granger said.

They were all sitting around the kitchen table in a little council of war, and this time there was no suggestion of excluding the children. Even Greg had been allowed in once he had convinced himself that Draco really was asleep.

Potter nodded. "That's what I thought. I made sure we used Muggle transport on the way here so there wouldn't be any magical traces or anything."

"Good thinking, Harry," said a tall, dark Auror whose name Greg hadn't caught. "At least you'll be safe here as long as the _fidelius_ holds out."

"How long will that be, though?" Potter asked. "Too many people already know, and if Voldemort can figure out how to break the blood magic on Privet Drive..."

"He's got to find you first, mate," Weasley said. Ron, Greg thought, got to call him Ron, especially with dozens of other Weasleys popping in and out of the place.

Granger chewed her lip. "I think he can," she said. "I read up about the charms the Ministry uses to trace wand magic after Dobby got you into trouble. There is a more complicated spell that can detect a particular wand being used. It's a lot more difficult to cast, and you need a really good connection to that wand, which is why the Ministry don't bother with it."

"And my wand is the twin of Voldemort's," Harry said, nodding. "You don't get a better connection than that."

Greg goggled; Potter and You-Know-Who having matching wands was seriously unnerving stuff. Then a thought occurred to him. "Could they have been tracking Draco the same way?"

"Maybe." Granger looked dubious. "They had access to his things at Malfoy Manor, oh and they could have used his parents' wands. It's not as good and not very accurate, but they might have been able to."

"What about you?" Ron asked. "If your father's mad enough with you, they could try the same thing."

"I wouldn't worry too much," Professor Lupin put in. No, he wasn't a professor any more, Greg belatedly thought. Seeing all these people outside school was so confusing. "No offence intended, but your father really isn't up to the sort of complex spellcasting needed."

"It's not just him, though," Greg said worriedly. "The Malfoys got on a lot of people's tits — erm, sorry Mrs Weasley — anyway, there are plenty of people better than Dad who won't be happy that I helped Draco get away."

"So don't do any magic," said a pink-haired woman whose name seemed to be Tonks. She laughed. "You might be better off hiding amongst the Muggles."

Potter actually seemed to take the idea seriously. "We might be at that. Being around Muggles all the time would make it easier to remember not to use magic. Oh." His face fell. "Except that Voldemort doesn't need my wand as a connection anyway." He pointed to his scar.

"Haven't you been practising your Occlumency, Harry?" Lupin asked. "You should be able to block him from seeing anything important."

"But then I'll be using enough magic that he can find me the other way," Potter pointed out.

"Not necessarily," Granger mused. "I've been doing some research in the Hogwarts library, and I think there may be a way to stop You-Know-Who from using Legilimency on you. I hadn't mentioned it before, because... well, because it involves binding your magic."

This time, Greg wasn't the only one shocked. "Binding a wizard's magic is a serious business, Hermione," Mr Weasley said. "It's not something to do lightly."

"Yeah," Ron put in, "and how's Harry supposed to fight You-Know-Who if he can't use magic?"

"There are temporary bindings he could use," Hermione said undaunted. "I found one that was used at the signing of the Treaty of Magdeburg, when neither side trusted the other enough to give up their wands, but both needed to show willing. It has to be performed by the person being bound, and they can break it quickly and easily if they want to. Really, anything that suppressed Harry's magic should be enough to suppress Voldemort's connection his scar."

Potter frowned. "It'll break the connection? Why didn't anyone tell me before?"

"It won't break it," Granger explained. "A binding keeps your magic from getting out, so it keeps anything from getting in or out through the connection too. The harder You-Know-Who tries to push at it, the more he'll end up reinforcing the binding and the better hidden you'll be."

"So I really could hide out in the Muggle world and Voldemort couldn't find me unless someone got lucky and recognised me?"

"With a disguise spell, no one would recognise you," the dark-skinned Auror said.

"It would be a spell, Kingsley," Mr Weasley pointed out. "Harry couldn't cast it or maintain it, and if anyone was looking for active magic in a Muggle area they'd spot it a mile off."

"Not if you've got a Metamorphmagus handy," Tonks said, shifting her nose through a variety of shapes to make the point. "Or are you forgetting about _potestatis mutuatio_?"

Ron and Potter looked as blank as Greg felt. Granger, on the other hand, had that 'oh, of course' look on her face that Greg hated so much from class. "Oh, of course," she said, then seemed to take pity on the dim-witted around the table. "It's a spell that lets you borrow a bit of a skill or ability from a willing witch or wizard. You'd only be able to make small changes, not nearly as much or as well as Tonks can herself, but that's all you need to avoid being recognised."

"That's perfect," Potter said happily. "Voldemort wouldn't be able to find me, but I'd still be able to do the things I need to." The significant look he gave Ron and Granger was pretty blatant even to Greg.

Lupin coughed. "About that, Harry," he began, but Potter was having none of it.

"It's something I have to do, Remus," he said firmly. "Dumbledore kept the information secret for a reason, and I'm going to do what he asked this one last time."

The silence that descended suggested that the adults at least had no answer to that one.

"Take Draco," Greg blurted out. He shrank back in his chair as every eye turned to him, expecting to be told to shut up, maybe even get thrown out. No one said anything, though, and Potter even went so far as to give him an enquiring look. "He needs to hide too, and with all that's happened with his Mum, he needs somewhere quiet to recover. Please?"

Potter held his gaze for a long while. "You care about him a lot, don't you," he said eventually.

Greg shrugged, uncomfortable. "He's my friend," he said. Ron snorted. "Well, maybe not my _friend_ friend, but he's always looked out for me and Vince. I don't want to see him hurt, that's all."

Potter thought about it for long enough that Greg started squirming before he nodded. "OK."

"I'm coming too." Ron was watching Harry carefully, so he didn't notice the look of mixed pride and worry that passed between his parents. Greg noticed it, though, and felt a little twinge of sadness. He'd cut himself off from his parents today, and it was finally beginning to get through to him just how much not being able to hug his Mum one last time meant to him.

"Don't even think about trying to talk me out of it, Harry," Ron carried on, forestalling anything Potter might try. "I'm not about to leave you to cope with the Slytherins by yourself."

"I was going to say thanks," Potter said, grinning, "but both Slytherins?"

Ron looked down the table to where Greg couldn't entirely believe what he was hearing. "Like you were about to leave Goyle to fend for himself. I know you better than that, mate. Hermione?"

Granger chewed her lip. "I can't, Ron," she said. "There's too much research we still have to do, I need to be able to get into the Hogwarts library and there's so much material here to go through. I'd end up giving you away with all the travelling. I'm sorry."

"Not to worry, love," Ron said placing a consoling hand over hers, and Greg couldn't help but smile at how sickeningly gooey he sounded. "I'll feel better knowing you're on the job. Just keep safe, OK?"

Potter nodded, all serious again. "Right," he said decisively. "Mr Weasley, we're going to need some help finding somewhere to live."

"Say no more, Harry," Mr Weasley said, and started explaining the Order's experience in infiltrating Muggle society. Greg sat back, trying to take in everything that had happened in the last few minutes. It was like what happened when Draco had one of his brilliant ideas, except they were letting him know what the plan was. And they listened when he said something, and didn't call him stupid, and they thought about his safety and...

And they were friends, he realised. They were friends, and they were treating him and Draco like they were friends too. He couldn't help the big, stupid smile he felt creeping across his face at the thought; if nothing else came from this, he had some friends.

This was going to be the best holiday ever.


	2. Chapter 2

Ron watched Harry hurry past the study door, skid to a stop and back up to stare in at him. "A guitar?" he asked.

Ron strummed an A minor chord by way of answer. "Charlie's been teaching me. He's saved up and got himself a fancy new Ovation or something, so he's let me have his old one." Which made it a hand-me-down like everything Ron owned, but he couldn't complain too much. At least the twins hadn't worn it out first.

"Wow," Harry said, grinning. "When are you starting on your career as a famous rock star, then?"

"Why? Looking for a job as a lead singer?"

Harry laughed. "I can't carry a tune in a bucket," he admitted.

"So much for all the free publicity," Ron told him mournfully. "What are you up to, anyway? And where's Hermione?"

"She's gone to make sure her parents are safe. She reckoned that if she hung around here, one of us would blab the details of the plan to her, and then we'd all be stuck."

"We kept Dumbledore's Army a secret all Fifth Year," Ron protested.

"A secret half the school knew," Harry pointed out.

"Yeah, but it was the right half. Anyway, you didn't say what you were doing." Which probably meant that it was dangerous and Harry was trying to protect him again by leaving him out of it. Which meant he'd have to muscle his way back in, because his best friend could be thick like that sometimes.

"I'm going out to fix the last bits and pieces so we can move into our new home. Tonks will be over this afternoon and— What?"

"You're not going out on your own," Ron said firmly. "Hermione would never let me hear the end of it if the Death Eaters found you now."

"The rental agency is only expecting one person," Harry said equally firmly, "and of course I'm not going out looking like this. Meet the man who's paying your deposit." He flourished his wand, and suddenly a tall, thin young man was standing there.

"Nice," Ron commented. "It looks a bit like those photos of your dad."

Harry looked in the mirror. "Damn, it does!"

Ron laughed. "At least you've managed to hide your scar," he said. "Maybe you can get rid of it properly with Tonks's help."

As Harry muttered darkly and adjusted his glamour, Goyle — Greg — appeared in the doorway munching a piece of toast. His eyes widened as he looked at Ron, and he gestured with the toast as he hurriedly chewed and swallowed. "You play?" he asked excitedly, adding "Hello, Potter," rather off-handedly.

"Yes, I play," Ron said resignedly.

Harry spluttered. "How did you know it was me?" he demanded.

Greg shrugged. "Thought I heard you. Nice disguise though." He didn't actually look away from Ron, which Ron found rather disconcerting.

"Right," Harry muttered, "I need to disguise my voice too. Forgot that." He set to work again.

"Are you any good?" Greg asked Ron.

Ron ran up a series of bar chords rather than say anything, wondering why people seemed so surprised. It was beginning to get annoying the way that people never seemed to think he could actually do anything decent himself.

"Wait there," Greg said, and ran out of the room.

Ron blinked. "What was all that about?" he asked.

"No idea," Harry replied. "Mind you, it wouldn't be the first time he's surprised me in the last couple of days."

That was true enough, Ron reflected. Greg didn't seem to be quite as thick as they'd thought, though admittedly it would have been hard to be thicker. He genuinely cared about Malfoy too, in the same kind of way Ron cared about Harry, even though Ron had never seen any signs of Malfoy treating him as more than a minion.

"Anyway," Harry said, interrupting Ron's train of thought, "I've got to go or I'll be late. See you in a bit." Barely giving Ron time to wave never mind demand that Harry wait so they could go together, he was off.

Smiling at seeing Harry so enthusiastic for once, Ron turned back to his guitar. He played a few licks that his brother had shown him with the words, "If you can play that on this guitar, you can play it on anything," and was pleased to discover that he pretty much could play them now. He was just trying out some chord progressions when Greg returned, carrying a large flat case. Ron looked on in interest as he pulled a flat four-stringed guitar with a couple of knobs on it out of the case and slipped the shoulder strap on. Pulling out his wand, he cast a soundproofing spell on the study.

"Hey," Ron objected.

Greg's face fell. "Sorry," he mumbled, "I should've asked if you minded me joining in."

"It's not that. Why did you do the silence spell? It's not like anyone here minds the noise."

"Oh. Um, sorry, force of habit. Mum bought it for me, but she made me swear never to let Dad find out. He'd go mad if he knew I'd got a Muggle eclectic bass."

"That makes sense," Ron said, mentally chalking up another surprise to Gregory Goyle. "How do you play it without eclectikity, though?" He was pretty sure he had mangled the word, but Hermione wasn't there to correct him.

"I figured out some spells," Greg said proudly. Ron looked at him skeptically, and he coloured. "Draco figured out some spells," he admitted, "but I didn't tell him what they were for." He chewed his lip, then started carefully casting some complicated spells.

"Great!" Ron enthused as the room reverberated to a bass A. "Do you know _Ghoul About Town_?"

By the time Ron's mother put her foot down and made them stop for lunch several hours later, they had run out of songs they both knew and were playing whatever came into their heads. They sounded pretty good too, in Ron's opinion. "That was brilliant," he said as they packed their instruments away. "We have to do that again."

"Yeah," Greg agreed, beaming. "That was fun. You're really good at writing songs."

"Huh?"

"Isn't that what you were doing just now?"

"I was making it up as I went along," Ron protested.

"That sounds like writing a song to me," Greg said stubbornly.

Ron didn't have an answer to that. Apparently Greg wasn't the only one with hidden surprises.

That thought made him grin so much his mother was sure he'd done something evil to Malfoy.

******

"Come on, cousin, you can do better than that."

Draco Malfoy scowled at Nymphadora Tonks. "This isn't as easy as it looks, you know," he grumbled.

"How would I know, I've only been doing it my whole life," Tonks said unsympathetically.

"Exactly! Borrowing is different."

Tonks heaved a sigh. "Look, Draco, I know you want to look as perfect as possible, but all you've got to do is make yourself look different. Come on, before I die of boredom."

Actually Draco just wanted to be left alone, but it didn't seem like that was going to happen any time soon. If he wasn't being treated to the utterly ludicrous sight of Potter and his cronies pitying him enough to be nice over the last few days, or having that revolting Weasley woman trying to fatten him up like a prize pig, then Greg Goyle was hovering about like he was going to break into a million pieces. He hadn't been given a minute to himself since he'd arrived here; no time to grieve for his mother like he needed to, or break into a million pieces like he wanted to.

And now this humiliation. For reasons he hadn't cared to listen to, he was having to change his face by borrowing Tonks's Metamorphmagus abilities instead of using a glamour like any sensible wizard would. Which, apparently, was the point. As best Draco could tell, this odious and forbidding house had driven everyone mad.

Mad or not, it didn't look like Draco was going to get out of there without humouring them. Suppressing an unseemly sigh he darkened his hair a little, widened his face slightly, and made his nose less angular. It felt every bit as uncomfortable as he'd expected, but the boy looking back at him from the mirror dutifully became a scowling stranger. "That'll do," he said.

"You've barely changed anything," Tonks objected.

"That'll do," he repeated stubbornly.

Tonks sighed again. "It's not that different," she said, as if explaining to a very slow child or Vincent Crabbe. Draco bristled. "Are you trying to get yourself caught?" she continued before he could say anything.

"It's different enough," Draco insisted. Even if he'd been in the mood to be more artistic, he'd have dug his heels in after that remark. Nobody condescended to him like that, especially not his shape-shifting half-blood cousin.

"Alright!" Tonks threw up her hands in resignation. "It's your life to throw away. Now get your arse out of here and send Harry in."

"How could I refuse such a genteel request?" Draco murmured, but he couldn't summon up the enthusiasm to put any bite into it.

Potter raised his eyebrows at him when he sullenly relayed Tonks's order. At Draco's glower he kept his comments to himself for once. "Here's your new identity," was all he said, thrusting a piece of parchment into Draco's hand.

"My what?" But Potter had already vanished. Draco looked around to see Weasley and Goyle frantically studying their own pieces of parchment. At least he assumed it was Weasley and Goyle — he'd been deep in a funk while they'd paid their visits to cousin Nymphadora. Weasley seem to have mostly turned his ginger mop a very dark brown, while Goyle had become a thin-featured blond. Draco had to admit that he wouldn't have imagined that either of them were the people he knew so well from school.

Bemused, he skim-read the notes in front of him. They described a Tom Fletcher, aged 17, recently moved to London and sharing a house with Danny Jones, Dougie Poynter and Harry Judd. None of them had a proper job yet. Tom's ambition was to become an astronaut—

"A what?" Draco asked absently, before half-remembered lessons fell into place. "Wait, I'm supposed to be some sort of Muggle?"

Goyle looked at him oddly. "We all are," he said.

"But why? What on earth can we do pretending to be Muggles that we can't do better as wizards?"

"Weren't you listening to anything we said?" Weasley sneered. He launched into the most implausible story Draco had ever heard, of how they were going to hide from magical detection by binding their magic.

"Are you insane?" Draco asked when he was done. "We don't know if this is going to work, and if it doesn't we'll be sitting ducks if anyone does find us."

"It only takes a few seconds to remove the binding, and it works as far as we can test it," Potter said, coming back into the room with Tonks in tow. He too looked very different now — the glasses were gone making his eyebrows stand out more in a thinner face, and those brilliant green eyes had turned blue. And...

"You managed to get rid of the scar!" Weasley exclaimed.

Potter shook his head. "The best I could do was move it," he said. He parted the hair on the side of his head clumsily, allowing Draco an indistinct glimpse of Harry Bloody Potter's Famous Bloody Scar. Wonderful.

"That's all well and good, Potter, but this is still lunacy," Draco fumed. "How are we supposed to even live as Muggles?"

"Muggles manage it," Potter said sharply. He sighed. "Look, we're the right age that Muggles will assume we're college students and won't give us a second glance. If there's anything you want to change about your alias, we can probably fix it as long as you say now, otherwise everyone else is going to memorise the wrong stuff about you. Except the names, I'm afraid you're stuck with them; I had to open bank accounts for you already so we can pay the rent."

"There are so many things wrong with that statement that I don't know where to start."

"Then don't," Tonks said firmly. "Now, I'm the only adult who knows what you look like, and even I don't know where you're living, so you should be secure enough on that front."

"I've set up a P.O. Box so Hermione can contact us," Potter told Weasley.

Weasley nodded blankly, then shook his head. "A what?" he asked.

"It a way Muggles can send a message to someone without having to know their address. OK?" Weasley nodded a bit less blankly. "I reckon it won't take us long to get ourselves sorted," Potter continued, "so let's meet back in the kitchen for tea. We can do the binding here, then Tonks can apparate us to a Tube station and we can move in this evening."

"What's a Tube station?" Goyle asked.

"Oh, I know this one," Weasley said excitedly. Well, it wasn't often that he knew anything, Draco supposed uncharitably. "It's a Muggle transport system where they squeeze you down tubes."

"Not exactly," Potter said, wincing slightly. "Anyway, don't forget to pack non-magically, because you won't be able to use magic to unpack and we don't want any detectable enchantments in the house."

"Why the rush?" Draco asked suspiciously. He hated being rail-roaded by anyone, especially Gryffindors who were notorious for not thinking things through.

"Because no one's sure how long the _fidelius_ on this house will last now that its secret keeper is dead," Potter told him.

Which was a good point, not that Draco was going to admit that. "You're mad, Potter," was all he said.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Potter said cheerily, confirming Draco's worst fears about what Gryffindors thought of sanity.

"Oh, and call me Harry."

******

"Here we are," Harry said as he opened the door. He dropped the rucksack containing all his non-magical possessions — basically his clothes — in the corner of the hallway and ushered the others into the house. "It's going to be a bit tight for the four of us, but we should manage. If you lot want to pick bedrooms and dump your stuff, I'll sort out dinner. Is pizza OK?"

"Great!" Ron — Danny — said enthusiastically. Harry reminded himself again to think of his best friend by his new name, which was proving harder than expected despite Danny's new face.

Danny and Dougie — who was much easier not to think of as Greg — disappeared up the stairs in a flurry of guitars, and Harry tried not to think of how well they were getting on as weird. M— Tom dallied with his mostly empty suitcase. "I suppose you've already claimed the best bedroom, _Harry_ ," he said. It was clearly supposed to be a sneer, but it didn't have anything like the venom of old.

"Actually no," Harry told him. "I claimed the little one. It reminded me of home."

"You are officially sad, you know that?" came Danny's voice from upstairs.

"You're not helping," Harry shouted back.

"I will never understand you," Tom said incredulously. "You actually want to be reminded of those monstrous Muggles?"

"Don't call them 'Muggles'," Harry said, happy to let the 'monstrous' bit slide. Tom looked blank. "It's not a word that Muggles know," Harry continued. "They'll ask what you mean, or think you're insulting them and make a fuss." Though come to think of it Tom probably would be insulting them. "If you're really unlucky a passing wizard will notice."

"Ah. OK."

Which was an easier acquiescence than Harry had ever expected from Tom, and further proof if it were needed of how badly he was taking things. "Go on," he said, giving Tom a gentle shove, "get yourself upstairs before that pair decide to claim the entire floor."

Ten minutes later, Harry had managed to order enough pizza to feed a small army, confident that Danny could inhale anything the rest of them didn't want. He was promptly treated to the sight of Danny and Dougie cajoling Tom back downstairs.

"...not about to let you sit and stew in your room," Danny was saying. "One friend who thinks he isn't good for anything is more than enough."

"Hey!" Dougie said, sounding hurt.

Danny rolled his eyes. "You're OK," he said, "I was talking about Harry."

"Hey!" Harry said, nettled.

"You want me to list the times 'Mione and I have pulled you out of a funk?" Danny challenged.

Discretion was the better part of valour, Harry decided. "So what do you think of the place so far?" he asked in a blatant attempt to change the subject.

"My room is cramped," Tom said straight away.

"But the bed's nice and comfy," Dougie put in diplomatically.

"And the sheets and pillows and stuff were already made up," Danny added.

Harry looked at them each in turn. "It's the best I could do with four bedrooms. The place came fully furnished. Your mum told me what to get and to make sure it fitted, so don't get used to it."

"I knew it was too good to be true," Danny said with a grin.

"So that's upstairs," Harry said; "four bedrooms and a bathroom. This is the living room and dining room combined. There's the TV, music centre and I think that's a games console. I'll show you how to work them later," he added, slightly alarmed at the enthusiasm in Danny's eyes.

"The kitchen's through there. I don't suppose any of you cook?" The other three shook their heads. "I was afraid of that. OK, don't any of you even touch the cooker until I've shown you how to use it without killing yourselves or blowing the house up.

"On through the kitchen there's a sort of bathroom; at least it's got a shower and a loo, plus a washing machine — which is for washing clothes, not you," Harry said quickly as Danny opened his mouth. "It's not for washing dishes either.

"Then there's — um, I guess it's a study." He waved vaguely at the other door in the living room.

Tom wandered over and peered inside. He stiffened. "There's a baby grand in there," he reported and walked in.

"A what?" Danny and Dougie asked in unison.

"A piano," Harry explained, hurrying over to the study door. "Like I said, the place came fully furnished, and that—"

Tom shut the door in his face.

For a moment Harry was too shocked to do anything. "Thank you, Harry," he said sarcastically as scales and arpeggios started to drift through the door. "No problem, Tom."

"He's still hurting, mate," Danny said, clapping a hand on Harry's shoulder. "Give him time."

"He doesn't have to hurt everyone else while he's at it," Harry fumed. "And since when do you defend him?"

"Since he needed it."

It was the seriousness with which Danny said it that stopped Harry. That and the fact that the git was right. Ever since they'd known each other, Ron had tried to help people he thought were in trouble and didn't deserve it. Granted he wasn't always good at spotting when people really did need him, and some of his ideas of what was helpful were beyond weird, but it was one of the things that had made him Ron and apparently was still making him Danny. Even the epic hatred for the entire Malfoy family that he'd carried for years hadn't had a chance in the face of Tom's pain.

"Never change," Harry told his oldest friend.

Danny looked alarmed. "Is it wearing off?" he asked, tugging at his hair in an effort to check its colour.

"Listen," Dougie said before Harry could explain what he'd meant.

Tom had started playing the piano in earnest. Harry knew he wasn't particularly musical so he wasn't terribly surprised that he didn't recognise the tune, but it caught at him just like magic first had. It was sad and lonely, crying out with loss and confusion, and it hurt just to listen to it. All the pain of seeing a beloved parent die was being poured into that music, all the torment of a soul betrayed, and it was almost more than Harry could stand. It was like the screams he heard when Dementors were near, the half-understood, incoherent memory of his own mother's death. Maybe he had had it easy all these years, Harry thought; that memory would always be clear and fresh for Tom.

It was almost a physical wrench when the music died away. "That..." Harry managed before words failed him. He'd been crying, he was slightly surprised to realise. Tears were streaming down Dougie's face too, and Danny...

Danny threw open the door of what could only be their music room from now on, and strode in. Tom looked up in surprise, but before he could pull himself together and say something stupid Danny enveloped him in a bone-crushing hug.

"Never again," Danny declared fiercely. "Nobody ever gets to hurt you that badly again."

"What he said," Harry choked out as he added himself to the group hug, echoed by Dougie's soft "Yeah."

It was a long time before anyone felt like letting go.


	3. Chapter 3

"Movies," Dougie repeated.

"Moving pictures, obviously," Tom said snippily. "How very unusual. Not."

The truth was Tom was having trouble maintaining a suitably bad mood. Sat alone at the piano on their first night here, he had managed to grieve at last, emptying his emotions at least for the moment. W—, er, Danny's unexpected and inexplicable declaration of loyalty, rapidly followed by being the centre of a determined and almost angry group hug, had thrown him for a loop. If he hadn't known better, he might have thought that they were treating him as a friend, and he'd found himself reciprocating. When they were Tom, Danny, Dougie and Harry, he was relaxed, safe, and occasionally even happy despite everything.

Whenever Harry decided that they needed to know more about the Muggle world, the old Draco resurfaced, and the old Draco didn't take kindly to being lectured by anyone, least of all Harry Potter. The worrying thing was that Tom was beginning to find the old Draco annoying.

"Think of it as a play that's been recorded so you can watch it again," Harry said determinedly cheerfully. "Look, it's probably easier to start watching one. You'll see what I mean. Pick one."

Tom sat still, stubbornly refusing to comply. Dougie hesitantly picked a box off the shelf. "How about this one?"

Harry wilted. Tom perked up; this promised to be interesting. "It's a great movie," Harry said, "but it's a bit difficult to explain. I was hoping you'd pick something a bit more, er, ordinary."

"No, no," Tom said when Dougie looked like he might put it back, "if it's such a great movie it'll do for us. We wouldn't want to watch anything _ordinary_ , would we?"

"You're going to be completely impossible if I don't give in, aren't you?" Harry sighed. Tom nodded in gracious acknowledgement of the submission. "All right, don't blame me if you get confused. Just remember, this is more of a strange story than most of them. As far as Muggles are concerned time travel is impossible, and I've never seen a car like that on the streets."

Tom waved away the excuse airily, spooned some more Chinese takeaway onto his plate and settled back to dissect the absurdly-titled _Back To The Future._

Two hours later the food was cold and Tom didn't care. He was in awe of the illusions that Muggles could pull off without the use of magic, and never mind how they did it. The story had taken its time to grip him given how unfamiliar the whole thing was, but once it did grab his attention it didn't let go. And the 1950s styles and music... Wow.

"How do I start it playing again?" he demanded.

Danny laughed. "You sound like a convert, mate."

Tom waved away the irrelevance, not even bothering to correct Danny's misapprehension that he was any sort of friend. "You use this thing?" he asked, picking up what Harry had called a 'remote'.

Harry plucked it out of his hand and put it back the other way round. "Are you sure you guys don't want to watch another film? You can always watching this one again tomorrow."

"I'm sure," Tom said firmly.

"Um," Dougie began. He shut up quickly when Tom glared at him.

"Let's go and jam for a bit," Danny suggested. Dougie brightened, and the two of them retreated into the music room and stopped being a distraction as far as Tom was concerned. Harry busied himself with something or other, Tom didn't really care what; he was far too entranced by the sounds and images in front of him.

When he finally sat back, having watched every second of the movie at least once more and incidentally having exercised almost every function of the remote, he was surprised at how late it was. The music room was in darkness; Danny and Dougie must have gone to bed. The remnants of dinner had been tidied away too, and Harry was dozing in the corner of the sofa.

He looked different asleep, Tom decided. Or maybe he just looked more Harry than Potter. Either way, Tom appreciated the fact that Harry had stayed up with him. In an obscure way he found it comforting that Harry trusted him enough to fall asleep, knowing just how much damage Tom could do if he put his mind to it.

Tom smiled and, after a little experimentation, retrieved the DVD and turned off the TV. Then he gently shook Harry awake. "You'll get a stiff neck sleeping like that," he said.

Harry evidently heard the 'thank you' behind his words. "Thanks," he said with a smile. "You really like that film, don't you?"

Tom nodded. "I didn't know they had so much imagination in them," he admitted. The Muggles had surprised him when they actually thought about time paradoxes, and that music with its simple, positive harmonies fitted perfectly. It would be running through his head for days.

"I never had you pegged as a science fiction fan," Harry remarked. Tom looked at him questioningly. "It's just a very Mu— er, well, not the sort of thing I expected you to actually like, that kind of movie. I thought you'd be more into classical literature or that sort of thing."

"I've always found it hard to get worked up over the deeper meaning of _Paradise Lost_ ," Tom admitted. "Come on, we should get to bed. Who knows what fresh excitement awaits us tomorrow?" He stuck out a hand to help Harry up.

Harry looked at his hand for a long moment before grasping it and hauling himself upright. "Glad to be your friend, Tom Fletcher," he said, still gripping Tom's hand.

Tom stared. "You're weird, Harry Judd," he returned.

Harry smiled back. "Maybe I am at that," he allowed.

********

"Damn it!"

Harry looked up from his breakfast to see Danny storming down the stairs, a towel wrapped firmly around his waist. "What's the matter?" he asked his irritated friend.

"Tom's hogging the bathroom," Danny snarled. "He'll probably come out looking like a prune and complaining about the inferior quality of the bath or something."

"But—"

"If I want a shower any time this century I'm going to use the one through there," Danny continued, gesturing vaguely at the kitchen, "and that thing hates me."

"The temperature control's just a bit sensitive," Harry said, distracted from his point.

"Sensitive? It's only got two settings, boiling or freezing, and it changes from one to the other whenever it feels like it. What's it got to be sensitive about?"

"Yeah, anyway—"

"I'm going to get scalded, and it's all his fault!"

"All whose fault?" Tom asked, wandering out of the kitchen with a bowl of cereal. Danny opened and closed his mouth a couple of times as Tom sat down and adjusted his dressing gown, but no sound came out. It served him right for not letting anyone else get a word in edgeways, Harry thought.

"You took long enough in the bathroom this morning," Tom said good-naturedly. "What's the matter, couldn't tear yourself away from the mirror?"

A few weeks ago that would have been the opening salvo of an exchange of insults that would have ended in detentions, Harry reflected, and Danny would have been the one saying it. Now you might almost think the two of them had been friends for years from the easy way they carried on.

"That wasn't me," Danny insisted.

Tom raised an eyebrow. "Seriously? You mean Dougie willingly exposed himself to water for more than five seconds?"

As if in answer to his question there was movement from above. Dougie came down the stairs, very visibly pruned since he was just wearing boxers. He stopped when he realised all eyes were on him, trying futilely to cover his body with his arms. "I, uh, kind of fell asleep in the bath," he admitted sheepishly. Then his eyes lit on Harry's plate. "Is there any bacon left?"

"In the frying pan," Harry said automatically. "Help yourself." His brain was fully occupied with the realisation that Dougie was nothing like as heavily built as he'd always thought. From his adventures with polyjuice potion in second year Harry knew that Dougie had been no lightweight, but now he seemed to be as slight as Harry was himself.

"How do you 'kind of' fall asleep?" Tom asked as Dougie made a bolt for the kitchen.

"I don't know and I don't care," Danny said. "The bathroom is mine!" He raced for the stairs as if the others weren't still intent on their breakfasts.

"Watch out for your towel," Tom called as the offending article loosened and fell to the floor. Danny was clearly torn for a moment between turning back for his towel and claiming the Shower of Blissful Temperature for himself. The shower won out, and Danny fled up the remaining stairs stark naked. Harry, benefitting from years of sharing a room with his friend, managed to take it pretty much in his stride. Tom seemed rather bemused.

"The disturbing thing," Tom said mildly, "is that I don't want to gouge my eyes out with a spoon."

"He'll be back when he realises he needs his towel to dry off with."

Tom shuddered theatrically. "I suppose I should be thankful that he's not as fat as I thought he was. Though how he can look like that given how much he eats I will never know."

"He's always been like that. I reckon he must have hollow legs." Harry hesitated, wondering if he was about to strain their new friendship, but decided to plunge on anyway. "Dougie isn't as bulky as I thought he was either."

"He's horribly embarrassed about that," Tom said airily.

"I can hear you, you know," Dougie's voice came from the kitchen.

"Ever since second year he's been growing upwards, not outwards," Tom continued as if he hadn't heard. "In the end I had to enchant his robes to make him look bigger, just to get the right air of menace. Frankly it was getting a bit ridiculous."

The was a strangled noise from the kitchen, but Dougie stayed firmly out of sight.

"I think you look fine," Harry called to him.

"I look like a wrinkly old man."

"Apart from that. I think being slim suits you."

Harry looked over to see Tom staring at him with one eyebrow raised, an evil smile twitching at his lips. "Is there something you haven't been telling us, Harry?" he asked sweetly.

"Don't say any more if you don't want to be wearing those corn flakes," Harry warned him.

Tom smirked. "Seriously, he's right," he called. "You don't look weird."

Harry rolled his eyes at the faint praise, but it seemed to work; Dougie stuck his head through the doorway. "Really?" he asked hopefully.

"Really," Harry said reassuringly. "It was just a surprise, that's all. Come and sit down."

Dougie took a little more persuading, but eventually he joined the other two at the small dining table. "I still think my body looks wrong," he grumbled as Tom pushed his empty bowl away.

Harry eyed the solitary bacon sandwich and coffee that was Dougie's preferred breakfast. Now he thought about it, he realised that Dougie hadn't eaten as much as he'd assumed at any of their meals. He'd just always expected him to behave a certain way, so he hadn't noticed how wrong he'd been.

"If you really think that, why aren't you wearing more clothes?" Tom asked reasonably. He stood without waiting for an answer and picked up the fallen towel. "I'll take this up before Danny scars us some more."

Tom had a point, Harry realised. He gave Dougie a curious look as Tom disappeared up the stairs. "So why are you going round in your boxers?" he asked.

Dougie reddened. "Everything else is dirty," he mumbled.

Harry sighed. He hadn't thought much about clothing when he'd set this house up, despite not having packed a lot himself when they'd fled Privet Drive. Dougie hadn't packed much either, apparently, and Tom had only had what he'd been standing up in plus donations from the Weasleys he'd been understandably reluctant to wear. Only Danny of all of them had much with him, and as ever most of his things were hand-me-downs.

"Bring your stuff down and I'll set the washing machine going," he said. "Then we'd all better go shopping this afternoon. Even Danny could do with a few more T-shirts."

"Thanks," Dougie said excitedly. "Tom, we get to go shopping!" he yelled in the general direction of the stairs.

Harry shook his head and smiled. He would never get used to how the most ordinary things fascinated wizards. If Dougie was like this over a quick trip to M&S...

"Oh God," he groaned, realising what he'd let himself in for. "It's going to be like herding cats."

******

Dougie sat down and grinned. They'd been out to Muggle shops and bought themselves Muggle clothes (which, granted, didn't seem all that different from regular clothes) and Harry had paid for them with a Muggle credit card and now they were in a Muggle pub and Harry was bringing over some Muggle beers which had actual alcohol in them and Dougie was so excited he could barely believe it was all really happening.

"There you go," Harry said, depositing four glasses carefully on the table between them. Something called Stellar Tortoise or something like that, Dougie didn't remember exactly what they were. He grabbed one up and took a drink before it could disappear. Tom and Danny weren't far behind him.

From their expressions, the others weren't entirely keen on the differences between this _lager_ stuff and butterbeer. Tom pulled a face. Danny gamefully said, "It's..." but obviously couldn't think of anything to follow.

"Alcoholic," Dougie supplied happily. He took another, smaller sip, and this time let the cold, bitter taste run over his tongue. It wasn't nearly as strong as the firewhisky his father had finally decided he was old enough for some years after Dougie had figured out how to get into the drinks cabinet, but he liked it all the same. "Brilliant, thanks Harry," he added, raising his glass.

Harry looked a little surprised, but grinned back. "That's all right, you can get the next round."

"I can? Great!"

Tom rolled his eyes and said something to Danny, who laughed. Dougie didn't care; he was used to it, and besides they were both still looking at him like he was a friend not a joke. That was something he was still enjoying getting used to.

As Harry and Tom started another round of their usual argument about style and Harry's lack of it, Dougie sat back and let everything wash over him. The pub seemed to be pretty busy, with people sitting around laughing and drinking just like the four of them were. Most people were dressed much the same as they were too, in T-shirts and jeans in a bewildering variety of colours and shades and designs that no one seemed to find the least bit unusual. It was all so different from the Wizarding world, and in other ways all so much the same. The weirdest thing was how Dougie felt part of this mix here, when he'd always felt like an outsider before. Everyone, himself included, just saw Greg as one of Draco's henchmen; everyone here saw Dougie as a person in his own right.

The pub's music system — another novelty — changed songs, and Dougie perked up. He didn't know the song itself, but he recognised the style. Loud, raucous and driving along without giving a damn what was in the way, this was what had first attracted him to music. He'd found a discarded Muggle radio and managed to get it working for a bit, and this song had come on that had thrown up freedom all over the boring future that he could see ahead of himself. He hadn't been brave enough to grab at that freedom — it was safer and easier letting other people make decisions for him — but it had stayed with him like a stubborn stain. It was why he had pestered his mother for the bass, so that he could make just a little bit of freedom for himself. Just enough to keep himself sane.

He looked up to see the others staring at him. "What?" he asked, suddenly self-conscious again.

"You _like_ punk rock?" Tom asked, as if the idea was just too wrong for words.

"Um, yeah?" It wasn't supposed to be a question, but Dougie couldn't help himself. That was how things worked between the two of them.

"How? Why?"

Dougie felt himself colouring. He knew what it meant to him, but as usual he couldn't find words that didn't sound stupid.

"It's got energy," Harry said to Dougie's surprise. "It's got something to say, and it isn't going to shut up until it's said, and it really doesn't care what you think about it."

"I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that the Man With No Taste likes it," Tom said. He said it with a grin, though, and Harry didn't seem to take offense.

"I don't," he said simply, "but I can understand how someone might."

While Tom pondered that, Danny took up the challenge. "Seriously mate, you like that stuff?" He looked more curious than angry or disappointed or anything like that, which was good because Danny seemed to be good at this music lark and his opinion mattered. Dougie nodded cautiously.

Danny grinned. "You rebel, you," he said.

"You're not helping," Harry said, which Dougie though was kind of unfair because Danny hadn't meant it that way. Dougie was about to say so when he noticed Tom was looking at him again. Really looking this time, like he'd never met Dougie before and wasn't sure how to react to him. It was a bit scary.

"Was I really that horrible?" Tom asked quietly.

Abruptly Danny wasn't laughing any more.

"No," Dougie said, mystified. "You weren't horrible to me and Vince." That wasn't exactly true, but it was close enough and Dougie didn't know what else to say.

Tom didn't seem to buy it. "What else did you have to rebel against? That's what punk's all about isn't it? Rebellion? I must have made you hate me so much—"

"No!" Dougie was mortified now. Draco had been a bastard sometimes, but he'd been their bastard. "It was nothing like that, honest."

"Then what?"

"The future," Danny said quietly, before Tom could work himself up into real hysteria. "I've heard Harry complain often enough about how he's always expected to do things. I reckon everyone's always expecting you to be the good little minion," he nodded to Dougie, "and when you've got no choice it doesn't matter how good it looks, sometimes you need to kick out. You can't tell me you've always been happy to follow in the family footsteps?" he asked Tom.

Tom grimaced. "Once or twice, maybe not," he allowed. "But you can't tell me Harry always does what's expected of him, either. Just being here isn't exactly the way the world sees its hero."

"I still have to face V—" Harry began darkly, only to have Tom slap a hand over his mouth.

"That name doesn't belong here," he scowled. Dougie reckoned it was just Tom's revenge for not being allowed to call Muggles Muggles, but he wasn't going to object. Just thinking about the Dark Lord's name gave him the creeps.

"Fair enough," Harry said, in a way that suggested it wasn't fair at all, and Tom should expect revenge to be swift and brutal. "I still have to face the bastard, whether I want to or not. The prophecy was pretty insistent about that."

Dougie shuddered. He knew that no matter how much Harry wanted to run away, you couldn't escape prophecy. It would come true somehow, and all that running did was stop you preparing for it. For Harry to have been living under that sentence all this time...

"Anyone want another drink?" he asked, standing abruptly. He needed to be away from the others for a moment. Away from the boy that You-Know-Who was going to find and fight, whatever Dougie did.

The boy Dougie really didn't want to see die.


	4. Chapter 4

"You've really got into this Fifties music lark, haven't you?" Danny asked teasingly. Tom grinned back at him from the piano stool, a far cry from the gloomy youth he had been when they first moved in.

It hadn't taken long for Danny and Dougie to drag Tom into their morning jam sessions. Danny had taken his cue from Harry, who hadn't been nearly as subtle as he thought when he mentioned music being a great healer and Tom being obsessed with Fifties rock in the same breath. Still, it had taken a certain amount of skill and determination on his and Dougie's part to play the music just that little bit wrong until Tom had stormed in and corrected them. He hadn't been able to resist joining in when Danny had started off on one of the lines he and Dougie had been playing with.

This morning, Tom seemed to be determined to play with an idea of his own. Danny thought it worked pretty well, even though they had no words or even the faintest idea of what the song was about, but he was having way too much fun teasing Tom over his take-charge attitude.

"It fits my natural flair for composition," Tom insisted, still playing his way towards the end of the verse. His eyes were dancing despite the snooty tone, and Danny wasn't fooled for a minute.

"It what?" Dougie asked with a laugh. Danny was pretty sure he'd never have dared to say anything of the sort a few weeks ago.

"It's all about him," Danny explained, but he couldn't keep his face straight at all. The laugh he got off the other two was worth it.

"It's all about you," he sang as they hit the intro again.

"Naturally," Tom said. Encouraged, Danny sang it over the second half of the line too. Tom's eyes unfocused slightly. "Sing it again," he said. This time when Danny sang, Tom sang a counter-melody after him. Catching on quickly, Dougie added a harmony line.

"Gentlemen, I believe we have a song," Tom said when they stopped. His portentousness was belied by the huge grin on his face.

"Yeah, that works," Dougie agreed.

"Sounds good," Harry said from the doorway.

"Harry! Where've you been?" Again, a few weeks ago Dougie wouldn't have been the one asking that question. Harry had actually skipped breakfast and gone out before Dougie had even got up 'to see a man about a dog.' Since the only thing Danny could think that might mean was something about Sirius, he hadn't mentioned it to the others.

Harry settled against the door post and looked smug. "I saw an ad in the paper last night," he said to Dougie in particular, "and I figured these guys ought to appreciate your playing a bit more."

Danny looked at Tom, who appeared to have no idea what Harry was talking about either. Dougie's eyes had grown huge, however. "You didn't...?" he asked disbelievingly.

"I did," Harry said, grinning from ear to ear. He bent down and slid what seemed to be a small but heavy black cabinet into view. "Apparently it's a bit temperamental, but it basically works. Congratulations on becoming the proud owner of a second-hand bass amp."

The look of joy on Dougie's face was a wonder to behold.

Danny leaned on the side of the piano as Dougie profusely thanked Harry. "Looks like Harry has finally found someone he can buy stuff for," he said.

Tom looked at him strangely. "You don't count because...?"

Because he didn't need charity, Danny nearly snapped. Fortunately he stopped himself for once; this was his friend Tom, not his enemy Malfoy. "I've got everything I need," he said with a shrug.

"But not everything you want," Tom said with surprising understanding. "I bet he's tried all the same."

Danny scowled. "I've got my suspicions about where my new dress robes came from," he said darkly.

"Think of that as a public service," Tom told him. "I'd be grateful never to see that monstrosity you wore to the Yule Ball again."

"There is that," Danny allowed. They watched for a while as Harry helped to connect the amplifier up. Dougie's blissful expression as the sound of his bass reverberated around the room was matched only by the look of indulgent pleasure on Harry's face.

"Next time we need to make Harry squirm," Tom murmured, "we can just accuse him of having a crush on Dougie."

"Don't you dare," Danny murmured back, "unless you want Dougie squirming too."

Tom looked faintly ill. "Thank you so much for that image."

Before Danny could dig himself further into trouble, Dougie let rip with a fast and complicated bass riff. Tom's eyebrows shot up into his hairline, but it wasn't long before he and Danny were improvising harmonies over the music flying off Dougie's bass. Danny noticed Harry shake his head and wander off after a minute or so. It was several minutes later before Dougie came out of the music enough to notice. Danny saw the look of disappointment cross his face and wondered for a moment if Dougie really did have a crush, and whether or not he should warn Harry. Not that he was going to let Tom do any teasing all the same; Dougie was a quiet guy except when he was drunk, and he'd take that sort of thing to heart. Lots of enthusiasm and no confidence, that was his problem.

The next time Danny looked up, Harry had returned. He had sat himself down in the doorway, attacking the leftovers from last night's takeaway with those chopsticks things that only he and Tom could use without making a mess. They reminded Danny too much of wands for comfort, and for a moment he missed having his own wand with him all the time. He pushed the thought away before it made him flub a chord change, concentrating instead on where to take their new song.

Songwriting with Tom was fun. The two of them just clicked, thinking in the same directions. As an added bonus, Tom never seemed to get nervous enough around music to be as sarcastic as usual. Not that he was that sarcastic or superior anymore anyway. Despite appearances, Danny was finding it harder and harder to think of him as Malfoy, which could only be a good thing.

Some minutes later as they belted through yet another variation on the chorus, Danny felt eyes on him. He looked up to see Tom grin at him then nod towards the door. Harry had finished his late breakfast and was sitting listening to them play, eyes half-closed and his mind clearly somewhere else. The chopsticks were still in his hands, and he was absently beating out the driving rhythm with them on the carpet. He was doing it pretty well too as far as Danny could tell, which was kind of annoying in a way; Harry always claimed he had no talent for music at all, and having heard him sing Danny hadn't asked again. It had been nice to find something his friend wasn't good at.

"Not bad," Tom said as they finished. His grin was positively evil by now. "We've got songs, singers, bass, guitar and keyboards. All we need is a drummer to be a proper rock band." He looked significantly at Harry.

"Huh?" Harry asked intelligently.

"It's a good thing we've got Harry then," Danny said, catching on rapidly. All things considered, Harry was well due a wind-up.

"What? No! You know I'm no good at this music lark," Harry appealed to Danny. "I sound like a dying frog."

"But you're a really good drummer," Dougie said with unexpected earnestness. "You got the cross-rhythms right on the third line, and Tom didn't have to glare at you or anything. I was watching." Which was more than Danny's active imagination wanted to know right then.

"You've been holding out on me," he said mock-accusingly, but somehow the teasing was turning serious.

Tom wasn't grinning so much now either. Instead he seemed to be seriously contemplating Harry, who was starting to look really worried. "They've got good points," he said. "You've got a natural talent. It would be a crime to waste it."

"You're serious about this?" Harry asked, sounding part amazed and part resigned. All three of them nodded. "Well, if it'll make you happy..."

"I think it'll make you happy," Tom said. That wasn't something that happened nearly often enough to Harry, in Danny's opinion.

"Great," Dougie enthused. "Welcome to the band."

******

Nights out at the local pub had their good points. His hand firmly wrapped around a half of lager, Tom was quite ready to concede that point. He wasn't quite ready to stretch as far as saying he enjoyed interacting with the locals, who with the possible exception of the bar staff never seemed to have two brain cells to rub together, but an evening out certainly wasn't a total loss.

Tom was perfectly well aware that the others kept insisting on nights out together to get him away from their small movie collection once in a while. Much as he would have rather stayed at home, the others didn't seem interested in listening to all the commentaries on all the DVDs of _The Lord Of The Rings_ , and naturally they wouldn't leave him alone in case he managed to become suicidally depressed or something. It would have been annoying if the fact that they genuinely cared wasn't so novel to him.

Up against that, making nice to the plebs was a small price to pay. There were even occasional surprise benefits, all be they of annoyingly indeterminate character.

"What sort of live band?" he asked.

Danny shrugged his shoulders and pointed at the unhelpful sign on the wall. "All it says is they're called 'Iron Duke'."

Apparently this was some great joke to the bar staff at _The Wellington_. Tom hadn't bothered to ask. He glanced at the cramped area people were setting up equipment in. "I didn't realise it took so many people. When do they start?"

Danny looked at the sign again. It was silent on the subject. "Whenever the band get here, I guess," he said.

"They're already here," Harry said. "They're setting up now."

"That's the band?" Tom asked in disbelief. The young men draping cables all over the place looked like neither they nor their clothes had met water since the last time it had rained. Surely they couldn't be the musicians?

Harry nodded. "It's not like we're going to get anyone here who's famous enough to have roadies."

"It's going to be epic," Dougie said enthusiastically.

"It's going to be something," Tom replied darkly.

"Give them a chance," Danny said. "They're bound to be better than us, after all."

Half an hour later, ten minutes into what apparently wasn't the band tuning up after all, Tom felt that he had more than given them a chance. "They're crap," he said succinctly.

"Mm-hm," Harry said non-committally. He seemed to be more worried about how Dougie was faring buying them a round of drinks, as if no one had ever managed such a feat before. His fingers weren't tapping out what passed for a rhythm though, and Tom decided to take that as corroboration.

"That is truly tragic," Danny agreed. That was the clincher; if Danny couldn't find a good word for it, it had no redeeming features.

"Come on Dougie," Tom muttered disconsolately. "We need alcohol to mourn the passing of taste. Lots of alcohol."

"Oh fuck," Harry said with feeling and hurried over to the bar. Tom looked over to see one of the local girls was having a conversation with Dougie. At least she was trying to; Dougie looked like someone had hit him with a _confundus_ charm. Tom understood Harry's panic; in that state, if Dougie managed to say anything coherent he was likely to give away that he was a wizard. Not that she was likely to believe him, but it was a hassle they didn't need.

Danny still had his attention on the band. "Seriously, who told these guys they could play?"

"A deaf man, obviously."

They both winced as the singer missed a note particularly wildly. "The sad thing is they've done one of those disc things."

"CDs," Tom corrected.

Danny gave him an uncommonly friendly smile. "Listen to you putting me right on something like that. Who'd have thought it?"

Danny wasn't being nasty about it, but Tom couldn't help but think of all the occasions that he'd tried to mess up the plans of the Boy Who Lived. He'd been so certain that he'd been right, that You Know Who had been exactly what the Wizarding world and his family needed. "It's possible that I may have made one or two mistakes on the subject in the past," he allowed grudgingly, trying not to think of how much those mistakes had cost.

Danny abruptly became serious. "Understood, mate, and forgiven," he said, once again proving that he could shock Tom without trying.

"When did you get to be so reasonable?" Tom asked. He ought to be used to it by now, the way that his friends — him, having real friends! — waded in for him and made him want to wade in for them.

"When you showed me I'd made a mistake or two myself," Danny told him. He looked up, then did a double-take. "What the hell?"

"She likes me," Dougie said as Harry steered him back to his seat. He was grinning stupidly — more stupidly than usual, at least — and staring off into the distance. It was either love or concussion, and Tom wasn't sure which would be the less trouble.

"She likes a good time," Harry said venomously, glaring daggers at the girl who had been chatting Dougie up and who was now wandering away from the bar apparently unconcerned by whatever had happened. "She's had a different bloke fawning over her every night we've been here. You don't need someone like that."

"But she said I was good-looking," Dougie insisted. "She must like me."

"That just means she's got eyes," Harry muttered.

"But I'm not—"

"Yes, you are," Tom said firmly. With Harry acting like a jealous girl and Danny clearly bemused by the whole situation, it was up to him to be the voice of reason. "I'll say this just the once, and only because it doesn't seem to be sinking in: you _are_ good-looking. I'd stretch the point as far as handsome. Get used to it, because I expect a lot more girls will be throwing themselves at you."

"You're a regular stud, Dougie," Danny supplied.

"Not helping," Harry told his friend. He was wrong, Tom thought to himself. Between the pair of them they had Dougie looking more normal, or at least like he was here in mind as well as body. Harry could stop hovering over him quite so closely.

Fortunately Danny had years of practise in ignoring Harry when he was being a prat. Unfortunately Danny also had a one-track mind. "So what happened to the beers, then?" he asked.

Dougie looked sheepish. Harry looked unrepentant. Tom sighed. "I'll get them," he said. At least the bar had the advantage of being marginally further away from the stage.

It turned out not to help at all. Standing at the bar while the middle-aged landlord pretended to be 'hip' and 'with it', whatever that was supposed to mean, Tom could feel a headache coming on.

"You can't beat live music," the man said far too enthusiastically as he topped up the glasses. He generously included the other man standing at the bar as a recipient of this pearl of wisdom, despite said person looking every bit as unenthusiastic about this particular incarnation of live music as Tom felt.

Tom gave him a patented Severus Snape 'You cannot possibly be that moronic' glare. "Frankly I'd rather be watching a DVD than listening to that lot."

The landlord's bonhomie slipped only a little, Tom had to give him credit for that. "You don't reckon much to them, then?"

"My friends and I are better than them," Tom informed him, manfully refraining from launching into a litany of their faults. "We've only been playing together for a week or two, but we've got better material and we perform it better."

"Everyone says that."

"In this case, everyone's probably right," the other man muttered disconsolately.

"Need a hand?" Danny asked, appearing at Tom's side.

"Yes, actually," Tom said. Dougie and Harry could probably be relied on not to cause another scene in the time it would take to set the landlord straight. Probably. "Do you still think _Iron Duke_ are better than us?"

"Seriously? No way," Danny said. "We're miles better than that."

Tom turned back to the bar triumphantly. "There you go."

"He's part of your band," the landlord pointed out reasonably. "He's bound to say that."

"If you stuck us up there, everyone would be saying it." Pretty faint praise in Tom's book, but it seemed to bear repeating.

The landlord looked at him narrowly, but it was the other man who spoke up first. "Sounds like a fair bet to me, Jason. Twenty quid says that if you stick them up there, they'll go down better. I'll even admit that _Iron Duke_ might not be utterly crap if you win."

It was delivered as a put-down, but it was Tom that Jason fixed with a look that was all too familiar. He had cheered inwardly hundreds of times as Snape had levelled a far more practiced version of that glare at Harry. "You on for Friday then?" Jason said, clearly implying Tom was a fool.

"Uh, Tom..."

Tom ignored Danny and held the landlord's gaze steadily. He had no intention of allowing such a second-rate intimidation attempt to succeed. "Absolutely," he said, lifting his chin defiantly. "Try us."

"Great, I'll be here." The other man stuck his hand out. "What's your band called?"

They had never even discussed being a real band, never mind what name to use. Tom wasn't about to back down in front of the redoubled glare he was getting of the landlord, though, so he replied with the only Muggle name that came to mind.

"McFly."

******

Harry hadn't been so nervous since the start of the Tri-Wizard Tournament. Apparently he could cope with being scared out of his wits taking on a psychotic wizard and his henchmen, but put him in front of an audience and all he wanted to do was turn and run. He'd even stuffed their wands in amongst his spare drumsticks he was that worried, telling himself that anyone might recognise them up on the stage.

It wasn't like he really knew what he was doing behind a drum kit. The others seemed to be born to music — even Danny, bizarrely — but all he had was a sense of where the rhythm was going. He hadn't even had real drums all that long, and he was still getting used to the different effects he got from different strikes.

Of course his 'new' drum kit was second hand and very beaten up, just like Danny's 'new' electric guitar and Tom's 'new' keyboard. Even second hand, buying them had pretty much wiped his bank account. He was going to have to sneak into Gringotts and transfer more money out of his vault far sooner than he had wanted, which only made him more nervous.

"Where's Danny?" Tom demanded as they milled around the stage area.

Harry frowned. "Still on the loo, I think."

"Oh for fuck's sake!"

That was just nerves talking, Harry reckoned. He'd always expected that Tom would snap at everyone and everything when he was nervous. Experience of his aunt and uncle told him to keep quiet at times like this.

Dougie apparently didn't know that. "Keep it down," he said anxiously. "The landlord's glaring at us."

"It's not my fault," Tom countered instantly. "Nobody told me his son was one of last week's noise-makers." Which was just so typical of the old Tom that Harry couldn't help grimacing. Whatever happened, they were probably going to have to find somewhere new to drink.

Tom closed his eyes and took a long breath, evidently trying to calm himself down. About a week too late by Harry's reckoning. "Come on, Danny," he heard Tom mutter, "get your arse in gear."

"My arse is just fine, thank you for asking," Danny said chirpily, appearing from the general direction of the toilets. Harry wasn't fooled for a minute; Danny was every bit as panicked as the rest of them. He certainly didn't normally lock himself in the loo for half an hour, not unless he was trying to hide from Hermione.

It was Harry's turn to take a deep breath and try to get himself under control. "Come on," he said before the others could find something else to do like argue. "Let's do this thing."

Once behind his drums, there were a hundred and one little things that Harry found he really ought to do before starting. His stool wasn't at the right height, the drums themselves needed shifting just a little, and he could do with finding out what that squeak was on the bass pedal. He could see Tom similarly adjusting his keyboard settings and Danny checking his tuning yet again. Anything to put off the evil moment when they were ready to play and people would actually be paying attention to them.

Dougie caught all three of them on the hop, ripping into his opening riff with his usual enthusiasm and power. Harry just had time to glance over and see him standing there, eyes closed and already caught up in the music in a way Harry was sure he would never understand. Then he was too busy remembering and feeling his way through the song to have time to notice much, just trying his best to keep it all together.

By the time the song ended and Harry had a chance to think again, all four of them were grinning. They had got through it with no major fluffs, and that on its own was kind of fun with some of the weird ideas Tom and Danny threw at them. Thinking of that, Harry wondered if next time he ought to—

The solid round of applause brought him back to reality, where he was surprised to see the audience looking pretty pleased. All except for Jason at the bar, who had a face like thunder. That might have had something to do with him handing a twenty over to the guy Tom and Danny had been talking to last week.

"Hi! We're McFly and you're all far too polite," Tom told the crowd, getting a little ripple of laughter back. He looked happy, confident and friendly, a combination Harry couldn't remember seeing on him before. He smiled wryly as Tom seamlessly linked into their next number; it was ironic that someone like Tom should be so much in his element in a place like this.

The rush Harry got when their set ended and the applause turned into cheering made the panics of the last week all worth while. He was used to getting public praise for things he hadn't really done, or that were accidents; being cheered for something he had done, or at least he'd helped his friends do, that was something different.

Tom and Danny's friend from the bar came over with a tray of beers. "Not bad, McFly, not bad at all," he said. Harry got the impression he didn't say things like that terribly often.

Danny nodded as he grabbed a glass. "Thanks," he said. "That wasn't as scary as I thought it'd be. Oh yeah, guys, this is Keith. Keith, meet Harry and Dougie."

Keith flashed them a smile as he handed over the remaining drinks, a little too reminiscent of Gilderoy Lockhart for Harry's comfort. "The pleasure's all mine."

"He's never scared of anything he should be scared of," Tom said, rolling his eyes at Danny. "Fortunately the crowd seemed to like us."

"With good reason," Keith assured them. "I take it that you guys don't have a manager yet?"

Alarm bells started ringing in Harry's head. Far too many people had wanted to manage the career of the Boy Who Lived, and all of them wanted to do it for themselves. Even Dumbledore, it had turned out. If this Keith guy was interested in managing McFly, it wasn't out of the goodness of his heart.

Danny and Dougie were still too buzzed from playing to take in what was happening, but Tom seemed to be thinking along similar lines to Harry. "You just happen to know someone who might be able to organise a few things for us?" he asked sharply, suddenly all business.

"I did get you this gig," Keith pointed out equably.

"With a bet," Harry observed. "How very _sly_ of you." Danny and Dougie evidently got his meaning, as they too started paying attention.

"So what can you offer us that we can't do for ourselves?" Tom asked.

"Get you proper gigs," Keith said without hesitation. "You've done OK in front of forty people here. How about four hundred, or four thousand? I can find you a couple of slots as a warm-up band that will put you in front of that kind of audience. Do you reckon you're good enough for that?"

"We're good enough," Tom said with a certainty that surprised Harry. "We could get there on our own. What happens after that is the interesting part."

"That's up to you and my bosses. I'm not going to promise anything based on one pub gig, but if you can hack it and if they like you, the sky's the limit."

"You have bosses?" Danny asked.

Tom ignored him. "Why would they take a risk on us on your say so?"

"Because it's my job." Keith was still smiling, not showing offence at Tom's rather dismissive words. Harry didn't pay that much attention to the explanation of how Keith was some sort of talent scout, much more concerned with the entirely non-magical way he was charming the others. When even Tom showed signs of being won over, he decided that enough was enough.

"We'll have to discuss it once we've had time to think," he said as pleasantly as he could, fighting fire with fire. "Perhaps we could get in touch with you on Monday?"

If Keith's smile slipped as he pulled out a business card, Harry didn't spot it. "I'll look forward to your call," he said, still professionally affable. "It's been good meeting you."

"The pleasure's ours," Tom told him, shaking his hand warmly.

Keith somehow managed to smile even more broadly. He turned to go, then paused for a moment. "By the way," he said over his shoulder, "I like the name."

"What did he mean by that?" Tom asked softly as Keith disappeared back in the direction of the bar. He still had a smile on his face, but Harry knew him well enough now to hear the wheels turning.

"Maybe he likes the films too," Danny suggested.

Harry looked down at the business card he was holding. "Oh," he said in a small voice. Tom looked at him quizzically, so Harry handed him the card. Tom read it and looked back up at Harry, clearly none the wiser.

"You remember the big film studio logo at the start of _Back To The Future?_ " Harry asked.

Tom nodded. "Univ— oh."

"Maybe they're just using the same name?" Dougie offered hesitantly, reading over Tom's shoulder.

Harry shook his head. "They get very picky about that sort of thing," he explained.

They were silent for a moment. "Wow," Danny said eventually. "I guess we really are playing with the big boys."

"Nobody signs anything until we've all read it carefully," Tom said very firmly.


	5. Chapter 5

Harry walked up the garden path with a heavy heart. They'd done incredibly well for themselves over the last several weeks. After the first chance gig in the _Wellington,_ their slots as a supporting band had been a breeze. They'd gone down well as a warm-up act, inspiring Tom and Danny to write more songs at a mildly terrifying rate while Harry and Dougie were just happy to get paid to listen to the main act. Apparently they had been impressive enough to win a chance to headline, with talks of a record deal if it went well.

What with everything running McFly's way and Tom and Dougie turning out to be surprisingly fun house-mates, it had been easy to forget that they were in the middle of a war. The letter in Harry's hand was going to change all that, he thought as he reluctantly opened the front door.

Danny's water-pistol squirted him square in the face.

"Harry! Get the behind the sofa! They've got me outnumbered," Tom yelled. He did a creditable movie flying dive, water pistol in either hand pumping away at Dougie and Danny, spoiled only by a plaintive "Ow" as he hit the floor.

Harry stood there and dripped. Around him, the chaotic water-fight slowly ground to a halt.

"Are you alright, Harry?" Dougie asked, and the genuine concern in his voice just made things worse.

"Yeah, you look a bit pale," Danny said. He frowned. "What's happened?"

"Hermione sent us a letter," Harry told him, holding up the now damp envelope. "We need to talk, R—, er, Danny." Mentally, Harry kicked himself. The others didn't need his slip to remind them that they weren't friends in the Wizarding world, but it didn't help. Predictably, Tom's face closed up into a mask of inscrutable politeness. Dougie's confused hurt was harder to take, but for Harry the look of resignation his oldest friend gave him was the worst.

"We'd better... um... my room," Danny said without enthusiasm.

"Aren't you going to tell us what she said?" Dougie asked as they turned to the stairs.

Harry didn't turn back. He couldn't bear to see the disappointment. "We can't," he told the wall in front of him. "The stuff this is about, it's better you don't know."

"I don't understand." Harry cringed to hear Dougie sound like that, but Tom's response was worse in some ways.

"He doesn't trust us," Tom snapped, and his tone was poisonously Malfoy, as if their recent weeks of friendship had never been. "Saint Potter has to run off and play the hero while we Slytherins must be kept out of the way."

"It's not like that," Danny said tiredly.

"No, I'm sure it's some great and glorious thing that the entire world will know about soon enough—"

"Not even the rest of the Order know, and they aren't going to either," Harry broke in, finally turning to glare at his old tormentor. He paused to rein in the anger he felt with Tom for making this all so hard, with himself for rising to the bait, and with the world for putting him in this position in the first place. "The sooner this stuff gets forgotten, the better. Trust me, if we didn't need to know what's happened, I'd _obliviate_ myself right now."

Tom's eyes spoke volumes about how little he trusted Harry there and then, but at least he shut up. Harry allowed himself one apologetic glance at Dougie, who wouldn't meet his gaze, before he stalked upstairs.

Once they were safely hidden in Danny's bedroom, Harry handed the letter over and let Danny read it without comment. It was a brilliant piece of detective work, really. Hermione had followed the locket's trail to Umbridge, and put together a plan that would get them into her nasty little inquisition. The trouble was the timing was critical; they could pull it off on Friday or spend weeks researching another opportunity, time in which someone else might recognise the locket for what it was.

Danny finished reading and looked up gravely. "Our gig is Saturday," he pointed out, obviously making an effort to keep calm.

Harry just nodded. There wasn't anything else to say.

"Tom is going to do his nut."

"Tom is already doing his nut," Harry muttered. He might not have been fair on Tom, but since when had life ever been fair to him?

"Because it's our fucking concert on Saturday," Danny shouted, his control shattering.

"I know! If you've got any ideas for getting out of it, I'm all ears."

Danny deflated as quickly as he had exploded. "We are so screwed," he moaned, running his hands through his hair.

"We'll just have to not screw up," Harry said. He tried to sound positive, even though he knew nothing ever worked that easily for them.

They sat in silence for while, stewing over how unfair it all was. Danny spoke first.

"I'll tell you one thing," he said heavily.

"I know," Harry said. "It's my job to tell the others we're bailing on the dress rehearsal."

******

"It's alright mate, we're here."

Dougie looked up as Danny and Harry stumbled in, but Tom stared resolutely at the TV, ignoring them. That had been the pattern for the entire day, ever since they'd discovered that the others had left before they had even got up. Tom had been angry, brooding and snappish, behaving in a very Malfoyish way. Dougie had been confused and hurt, desperately needing to talk about what was happening but knowing better than to open his mouth.

The note Harry left promising earnestly to be back that evening hadn't helped. Tom had taken it as an insult, somehow. Dougie had just fretted until he realised that it was what the note didn't say that hurt him. There was no mention of why the others had gone, not even to say why they couldn't say. Dougie thought they had become friends over the last few weeks, that this was somewhere he finally fitted in. Suddenly finding himself on the outside again, that he didn't belong... he didn't think the others could have made him feel worse they'd punched him. At least he would have been able to feel angry about that.

"It's alright, I've got you."

Danny was all but carrying Harry, whose face was screwed up in pain. Dougie's heart lurched in horror at the sight. He was out of his chair and slipping Harry's free arm over his shoulder almost before he realised what he was doing.

"It's OK Harry, you're home now," he said as reassuringly as he could. He couldn't see any blood, but that didn't mean anything. There were any number of ways you could use magic to hurt someone without leaving a mark. He should know, he'd used enough of them intimidating other kids.

"What happened?" he asked, trying not to imagine Harry writhing under a _cruciatus_. Danny shook his head and said nothing.

_"What happened?"_

Danny looked startled at the cold vehemence of the question, and truth to tell Dougie was a bit surprised too. It did no good all the same. "I can't tell you," was all that Danny would say, and however unhappily he said it, it didn't make Dougie any less angry. Harry was hurt, damn it.

"What's the matter, Weasel?" Tom drawled, still not looking up from the TV. "Ashamed of how your captain got his wounds?"

Danny bristled, but Harry clutched at him before he could say anything. "Please," Harry managed to grate out. "Don't."

Something broke in Dougie. He desperately wanted to make someone pay for Harry getting hurt. Danny was the only someone to hand and just for once Dougie would have enjoyed punching his lights out, but Harry didn't want them taking it out on each other. It wasn't fair, and Dougie found himself shaking with the effort not to start a fight anyway. "It's OK, I'm here, I won't let go," he told himself as much as Harry.

"I swear I thought he'd got over..." Dougie gritted his teeth as Danny had to pause and censor himself. "He was OK until we re-did the bindings."

"So undo them."

"No!" The time it was Dougie that Harry clutched at. "Won't risk you two."

"How very noble of you," Tom said tartly.

Dougie ignored him. "Don't be daft," he pleaded. "You don't have to kill yourself over this."

Harry shook his head stubbornly. "I'll survive," he mumbled.

He got a long, hard stare from Danny at that. "You think You Know Who is looking for you right now?" he asked.

Harry nodded. "Knows what I did."

The blood drained from Danny's face. "Fuck," he said softly.

Dougie didn't know what the hell they were talking about, but it couldn't be good. Somehow or other they must have managed to really piss off the Dark Lord, and just the thought of that terrified him. The only thing he could do was concentrate on the here and now, on the body that sagged against him as just saying those few words took their toll on Harry.

"Come on," he said, trying to push the terror aside, "let's get you to bed." Danny shook himself and moved to help, but stopped when Dougie glared at him. "I've got him," Dougie said more sharply than he'd really meant to, but the truth was that he still held Danny responsible for letting Harry get like this. He wasn't about to forgive him for it any time soon, either.

Danny looked over at Tom and sighed. "Just when I thought the day couldn't get any worse," he said, quietly enough that there was no way Tom could have heard. "Don't let him pretend he's OK, right?"

As if, Dougie thought. He had to more or less carry Harry up the stairs while Danny sat himself quietly next to Tom, so there was no way he was going to mistake Harry for someone who was actually OK. He kind of hoped that Danny would manage to pull Tom's head out of his arse, but even that miracle wouldn't make up for letting Harry get into this state.

Dougie kept up a soothing stream of babble as he guided them across to Harry's room, as much for his own benefit as for Harry's. If he let himself stop and think he'd get terrified again, and then he'd freeze up and be no use to anyone. He was nearly crying himself from the effort by the time he lowered Harry onto the bed and set about undressing him.

It was a weird thing to be doing by any stretch of the imagination. Dougie had got used to the others parading around in just their underwear first thing in the morning, but getting Harry down to his vest and boxers was one of the most hideously embarrassing things he had ever done. He tried to keep the worry and shame off his face as he tucked Harry under the covers, but he didn't think it worked. Not that Harry was in any state to notice, but that was what was worrying him in the first place.

"Can I get you anything?" he asked anxiously once Harry was settled. Probably not a beer, he thought. "A cuppa? Something to eat?" Oh wait, they had some of those crappy Muggle pain-relieving pills. "Some aspirin?"

Harry shook his head. "I'm OK," he said quietly.

Dougie didn't need Danny's warning not to believe a word of that. Harry was rigid with the effort of not falling apart in front of Dougie, but he couldn't keep the pain out of his eyes. It reminded Dougie of when he'd been stung by a wasp as a kid and his father had made him 'take it like a man' when all he had wanted was for his mother to hold him and make it all better. Granted, whatever Harry was going through was way worse than any wasp sting and he wasn't a little kid any more, but Dougie didn't have any better ideas.

Quietly, determinedly, Dougie took of his trainers and slipped fully-clothed into bed with Harry. There were confused protests but Harry didn't try to push him away or anything, proof to Dougie's way of thinking that he was doing something right. "It's OK," he said. "I'm here, and I'm not going anywhere." Not while Harry was like this.

Harry tried to soldier on, but it was only moments before all that Potterness cracked and Dougie had to be the strong one for once. Strangely, Dougie found himself less terrified now that he had no choice. Harry needed him right there and right then, and that was the end of it. He just pulled Harry closer and let him sob into his chest, wishing all the while that he was clever with words like Tom or brave like Danny.

"Hurts," Harry whimpered.

"I know. It'll be alright," Dougie murmured over and over, rubbing soothing circles on Harry's back the way he vaguely remembered his mother doing for him. It had to be alright. To see Harry like this...

No. Harry would be alright again, even if Dougie had to comfort him all night.

******

Tom padded down the stairs, stopped and rubbed his eyes. "What the hell?" he asked the room in general.

"Dougie's making breakfast," Harry said apprehensively. He was staring at the doorway to the kitchen, still looking a bit grey if nothing like as bad as last night. His mind was clearly disturbed, though, if he considered that explaining why he wasn't still in bed recovering wasn't the first thing he ought to be doing. Tom looked to Danny for enlightenment.

"Dougie's making _his_ breakfast," Danny clarified unhelpfully, "with knives and hot things and general Dougieness. The rest of us will probably survive if we keep clear of the kitchen for a bit."

He was surrounded by idiots. "Let me rephrase that: what the hell are you doing out of bed? You looked like death warmed up last night. I expected you to be out of it for days." He usually was, after all. Harry's exploits always seemed to end with a stay in the infirmary, and even if Madam Pomphrey was an unsympathetic old dragon, Tom had to admit that she knew her stuff. How Harry was back on his feet without drinking half of her potions cupboard was a mystery.

Harry looked at him seriously. "I promised you we'd be back for the gig," he said, as if that explained anything.

"You didn't promise to be in any fit state to play," Tom said sharply.

Harry didn't give him the satisfaction of rising to the bait, though he did look momentarily annoyed. "I'm fine," he said instead, "a bit stiff but I'll live."

The smoke alarm began shrieking shrilly. In retrospect Tom considered that a good thing, because it meant no one heard his muttered "More's the pity."

"Harry Judd, get your arse back on that chair," Dougie shouted from the kitchen. "I've burnt the toast, that's all." The smoke alarm obligingly stopped a few seconds later.

Harry sat back down quickly, looking so apprehensively in the direction of the kitchen that Tom had to squelch a smile. "Two o'clock," he said instead. Harry and Danny looked at him quizzically. "We get some rehearsal time on stage at two o'clock. They'll be setting up around us. Don't be late."

"Aren't we all going together?" Harry asked.

"I'm not assuming anything," Tom said coldly. It would be just like Harry to discover at lunchtime that he had to go off on a week-long quest to track down some nurgles or whatever those non-existent beasties of Loony Lovegood's were.

This time Harry did start to bristle, but Danny stopped him before he could say anything. "Look, mate," Danny said, "we—"

"You are not my 'mate'," Tom interrupted, not wanting to hear whatever platitude Danny was going to come out with this time. As far as he was concerned it was true. In all this Muggle madness he thought he had come to an understanding with Danny, but the moment this business had started Danny had been all 'Yes, Harry, no, Harry, three bags fucking full, Harry.' Even last night when he had been honoured with Danny's undivided attention, he'd had no more than a song and dance routine about how important it had been. Whatever the hell 'it' was, and for all that Danny professed to be sorry he still wouldn't trust Tom enough to say what. So much for friendship.

"We'll be there," Harry said defiantly.

"If I have to drag him by the scruff of the neck," Danny confirmed. He was trying to make it sound light-hearted, Tom could tell, but the smile just wasn't there. It was almost enough to make Tom feel guilty for snapping at him. Almost.

Before sympathy for Danny's evident misery could sway him into doing something stupid like letting them off, the smoke alarm started screaming again.

"Sit!" Tom bellowed as Harry made an abortive move towards the kitchen. "You," he pointed at Danny, "go and stop him burning the house down. You," he pointed at Harry, "do not leave my sight until we get off stage tonight."

He glared at Harry as Danny trailed silently into the kitchen, just daring him to start a fight. Unfortunately Harry seemed to have got himself under control, and he just stared after his friend. A few moments later the smoke alarm stopped abruptly, and an uncomfortable silence descended around the dining table.

Harry cracked first. "This means the world to him too, you know," he said softly, still looking towards the kitchen.

He meant Danny, obviously. Tom scoffed. "So why did he go running off with you yesterday?"

"Because if he didn't, there wouldn't be a world for it to mean." Harry turned to look at Tom and continued, "The stuff we're doing, it has to be done if we're going to defeat V—"

"Him," Tom interrupted before Harry could say that hated name. The haunted look in Harry's eyes had shaken him badly, but he had his own hurt to rally around. "Ah yes, the famous secret plan that I can't be trusted with," he said bitterly.

"It's not like that," Harry protested. Tom gave him a look of utter disbelief. "I promised Dumbledore that I'd only talk about it with Hermione and... and Danny, and I've only told them because I can't do it on my own. I promised him, Tom, and I keep my promises."

"And it never occurred to you that we might want to help too?" Actually Tom didn't want anything to do with whatever great suicidal scheme Harry had planned, but being excluded still rankled.

"I promised I'd do my best to protect you when we left Privet Drive," Harry said, completely serious. "I promised Dougie to keep you safe. I keep my promises."

That was unexpected. Tom didn't know whether to be grateful that Harry's Gryffindor honour apparently now meant looking out for him too, or to strangle the idiot for trying to keep him out of things. He was saved from having to choose by Dougie shuffling in from the kitchen.

"I, um, burned the bacon too," Dougie admitted. He put a bowl of cereal down in front of Harry, looking thoroughly (and rightly, in Tom's opinion) ashamed. "I'm really sorry, this was all..."

"It's perfect," Harry told him. Whatever had happened to him must have affected his mind, because he seemed to be smiling as if he actually meant that. Then again, Tom had always considered that Harry had to be soft in the head, so maybe this was nothing new.

"What you've done for me, now and last night," Harry continued, "no one's ever looked after me like that before. Thank you. Thank you for everything."

They were both idiots, Tom decided as Harry actually stood up and hugged Dougie. Perhaps that was why they were getting on so well. Then again, carrying the corn flakes in without tripping and throwing the whole lot over Harry was doing pretty well by Dougie's standards. It was a wonder he hadn't done worse than burn things in the kitchen given how bad he had been at Potions.

Dougie was pink with embarrassment when Harry let go of him. "You're really OK with me messing up and everything?" he asked.

"Of course," Harry said warmly.

Tom had seen Dougie looking guilty too many times to let it go so easily. "What have you done?" he demanded, eyes narrowing.

"Um, we need a new smoke alarm."

******

Hermione Granger handed her ticket over and wondered how her life had managed to get so complicated. She should still be in school, learning the advanced magic she would need for her future career. Instead she was sneaking around magical libraries without the friends who had been with her for the last six years, looking for clues to where Voldemort had hidden bits of his soul. It might be exciting, but it was no kind of life for a teenager.

Even when she had got back together with Ron and Harry, it hadn't been like the old times. Oh, they'd destroyed the horcrux all right, even breaking into the Ministry to do it, but things hadn't been the same between them. Harry had been OK, glad to see her even, but Ron... Ron had barely even talked to her. He wouldn't even let Harry tell her what had him so distant. The best explanation she had got was that the boys were doing stuff in the Muggle world that Ron was preoccupied with.

She had worried about them being imposters for a while. Both of them were wearing glamours of course, to hide what they looked like now, so proving that they were Harry and Ron wasn't so easy. In the end she had just accepted that they knew all about horcruxes and put their odd behaviour down to having to cope with the Slytherins for so long.

Harry had understood when she confessed her worries to him later on. He had even arranged some secret passwords for them to use, as if they were in a James Bond film. "It's not like we could even let you use legilimancy on us," he had pointed out, "what with all our recent memories being of our new faces."

She had only really talked to Ron once they were finished. Destroying the horcrux had hit Harry hard, and they'd fretted over him until he had sent both of them away to give him some peace and quiet. The two of them had sat in an uncomfortable silence until Hermione could stand it no longer.

"I've missed you," she had said.

That had surprised Ron, who seemed to be still worrying about Harry. "Uh, me too," he had grunted less than convincingly.

"Harry will be all right," she had told him as confidently as she could. She hadn't been nearly as certain as she had tried to sound, but Ron seem to need the reassurance.

"He'll have to be," Ron had muttered, staring again at the door between them and where Harry was resting.

"Is living with Malfoy and Goyle really that hard?" Hermione had meant the words lightly, but the gaze Ron had turned on her was shockingly cold.

"They've been OK," he had informed her stiffly, then changed his mind. "No, they've been great."

"But?" she had asked, sensing more.

"We just left them on their own, with no one to turn to if this all went pear-shaped. And..." He paused, visibly trying to control himself. It didn't entirely work. "You couldn't have asked us?" he fumed. "It didn't occur to you that we might have been doing something together? Something important?"

"But Ron, what could you possibly be doing that's more important than defeating Voldemort?" She had known the words were a mistake even as she had spoken them, but she couldn't stop herself.

Ron had smiled thinly. "I can't tell you," he had said. "I guess it's only fair, seeing as I can't tell them about this."

"But—"

"No, Hermione, that's enough! You don't know what they've been through, you don't know what they're like, and you don't know what all this means to them."

"And you're not going to let me get any rest, are you?" Harry had put in before either of them could say anything unforgivable. He'd been standing in the doorway, smiling sadly at the pair of them. By unspoken agreement, she and Ron had started fussing over him again. To be honest, Hermione didn't know what to think about Ron's outburst. She didn't understand the gulf that seemed to have opened up between them, or how he could let himself get so distracted from the war with Voldemort.

Harry and Ron had left not long after that, once Harry had persuaded them that he was just tired and coping with a monster headache. Before leaving, he had taken her aside and suggested that she took a break and did something completely different. "Something I've learned in the last few weeks is that we can get so caught up in how we're fighting that we forget why. Don't let that happen to you, 'Mione. Just go out tonight and enjoy yourself."

She hadn't, of course. She had stayed in with a book, a mug of cocoa and Crookshanks for company, but Harry's words had nagged at her. A restless night had convinced her that he might have a point, which is why she was now out at a gig, thoroughly glamoured up to be sure no Death Eaters would spot her, and worrying about whether she was going to enjoy the experience at all. She would have felt better if she'd heard of the band, but last minute tickets for anything she actually liked weren't common.

McFly weren't half bad, it turned out. Despite her misgivings, Hermione found herself relaxing and getting involved in the infectiously enthusiastic music. She even found herself giggling at the resemblance of one of the band members to Draco Malfoy; she could just imagine the pureblood's horror at being stuck up there entertaining mere Muggles.

By the time the band headed off-stage for a break, Hermione had practically worn herself out dancing. She was surprised at how much she had enjoyed herself — she generally preferred the quiet of a library to the noise of a concert hall, after all — but she was glad for the rest. She had always reckoned that she was fit if not terribly athletic, she mused as she waited for the crush of people at the bar to subside, but if she was this tired after half an hour or so on the dance floor she might have to re-evaluate that opinion.

It took quite a while for her to get served, plenty of time to ponder Harry's words. He wasn't entirely right, she decided; as a Muggle-born witch she knew better than most what was at stake. On the other hand, it was very refreshing to spend the evening not worrying about horcruxes and Death Eaters. It was giving her some distance from the problems she had been so immersed in, giving her subconscious time to process all the information she had gathered. If it worked, she would have to do this sort of thing more often.

"So what's a nice girl like you doing here along?"

Hermione took an instant dislike to the boy who interrupted her thoughts. Leaning artfully against the bar, he reminded her strongly of Miles McClaggan: full of himself and expecting the world to go along with him. "I was enjoying myself," she said pointedly.

Predictably her would-be admirer didn't take the hint. "You'll enjoy it all the more with company, and lucky for you, here I am."

"Thanks, but no thanks," she said. She practically grabbed her orange juice out of the barman's hand and turned to go.

He grabbed her by the arm, stopping her. "Now there's no need to be like that," he said smoothly.

Hermione was perfectly well aware that in the right circumstances, looks could kill. She would have settled for a light maiming right then. Not that the boy scared her — she could think of several ways of getting free of him, and in an emergency her wand was hidden in some magical extra space in her purse — but it would have been satisfying. "Take your hands off me," she said coldly.

Before the idiot could say something for which Hermione would have to hurt him, he was interrupted as someone new cleared his throat loudly. He blanched and let go of Hermione quickly.

"Are you trying to get thrown out again?" the newcomer rumbled. In a plain T-shirt and jeans he looked more fat than muscular, but he seemed to be intimidating enough to deal with the McClaggan-alike.

"Just trying to help out a lady," he said, backing off, "but I know when I'm not wanted."

"Thank you," Hermione told her entirely unnecessary rescuer once the pest was safely out of earshot. It was only polite, and he had after all stopped her from having to make a scene.

"Taylor's an arse," he said, still glaring after the other boy. "We've all been told to watch out for him."

"We?" Hermione had to ask. "You work here?" He didn't look any older than her.

"On the door," he confirmed. "It doesn't pay much, but we can get freebies if the place isn't too full."

Hermione could just imagine him in a bouncer's black suit. He wouldn't look half bad. "Then thank you for helping me out on your night off," she said sincerely.

"Not a problem, er..." He looked at her at last, floundering slightly. He was comfortingly like Ron in some ways, totally out of his depth when talking to a girl. Hermione couldn't help but take pity on him.

"I'm Jean," she told him, picking her middle name rather than inventing something she might forget later.

"Vic. That's my name, Vic," he said haltingly.

He was completely hopeless, Hermione thought. It was endearing, really. She hesitated for a moment, but only a moment. After all, hadn't Harry told her to enjoy herself?

"So, Vic, would you like a dance?"


	6. Chapter 6

Danny had been dreading dealing with the next horcrux for months.

Things had never quite got back to normal between the four of them. Not that 'normal' had ever been particularly normal for them anyway, but with the band turning out to be a success life had become even more crazy than before. It seemed like they were always rehearsing for a gig or writing new songs or rearranging things as they discovered more about what worked and what could be done. They'd even spent time in a recording studio and were close to releasing a CD, which meant that Danny spent half his time dragging Tom out of the editing booth and making sure he ate.

That was typical of how things were, though. Tom put everything into the band, and Danny tried to do the same, but there was a distance between them that he couldn't seem to bridge. If they hadn't been living together, Danny didn't think he'd have seen Tom outside of making music. The weird friendship they had shared in the those first few weeks seemed to have fallen apart completely.

It didn't help that Tom seemed to be in a permanent snit over Dougie. Dougie seemed to spend all his time fretting over Harry, while Harry had made boosting Dougie's confidence his life's work, and Danny reckoned that Tom saw that as yet another thing taken away from him. Having Danny going round trying for once in his life to be sensitive and supporting didn't count, apparently.

When Hermione's letter finally arrived, it hadn't been as bad as Danny had feared. At least this time they had been able to put it off until after a concert, though Tom still took offence at being left behind to explain why they'd given their minders the slip. After that they just had to spend several days planning how to break in to Gringotts, which might have been mental but it was the sort of mental that they did every year so Danny basically didn't notice any more. He was too busy worrying about abandoning Tom and Dougie to care all that much.

Then they'd actually done it, and as usual their plan had turned into utter fucking chaos within minutes. Danny had been supposed to be the one to destroy the horcrux this time, but when they'd actually got to the goblet Harry had been the one in the right place holding Gryffindor's sword. Which was why Danny was once again stumbling into their home, practically carrying his oldest friend.

Dougie met them almost the moment they stepped inside. "I'm sorry," Danny said automatically, "I tried—"

"Not hard enough." Dougie didn't sound any more forgiving than he had last time, and Danny couldn't blame him. He felt the same way.

Harry apparently disagreed, and he protested as Dougie took him off Danny. "It was my fault he had to keep dodging the dragon," he protested feebly. Dougie ignored him, gave Danny one last baleful glare, and led Harry away.

"I know you better than that, mate," Danny said softly, watching them disappear upstairs. He would never accuse Harry of putting anyone else in danger, but Harry probably reckoned that facing a weak and rather stupid captive dragon was less dangerous than destroying a horcrux. It wouldn't be the first time that Harry had tried to keep him out of the main line of fire.

Tom didn't even look up when Danny sat beside him on the sofa. He was watching a DVD — _Back To The Future_ , Danny saw with a sinking heart. The film was something Tom came back to whenever he was upset, usually after a screaming match, if playing the piano wasn't enough to calm him down.

"I'm sorry," he said almost reflexively. Tom gave no sign that he'd heard. "He was supposed to come back in one piece this time. I tried, really I did, but you know Harry."

That finally got a reaction. "You don't get it, do you?" Tom said heavily.

"I do," Danny insisted. McFly meant everything to Tom, and not much less to him. "It's just... if we don't do this, _he'll_ get away with it. All the lives he's taken, all the people he's hurt..." Especially Tom, who might have been a stuck-up git but who didn't deserve to have lost his family. "If we do this, at least it'll mean something."

"Really?" Tom sneered. Danny had heard that sneer so often at Hogwarts and had wanted to wipe it off Tom's face with his fists. Knowing the pain and fear behind it, Danny felt more sorrow than anger these days.

"I'm supposed to believe that a couple of underage wizards who don't even dare wear their own faces any more are going to take down the most powerful Dark Lord the world has ever known?" Tom continued.

Danny knew Tom was trying to provoke him, so he stamped hard on the urge to snap back. "If we don't get this stuff done, there's no point in even trying. Trust me."

That was the wrong thing to say. "Trust you?" Tom spat, turning back to the film. "How am I supposed to trust you when you won't trust me?"

"I haven't even trusted my own brothers with this," Danny pointed out reasonably.

"Considering what your brothers are like, that's not a surprise."

Danny sighed. "We're destroying dark artifacts," he admitted. He could tell Tom that much without saying anything Harry didn't want said. "Until we get all of them, You Know Who is protected. That's more than anyone outside me, Harry and Hermione knows."

Tom looked faintly stunned for a moment, though he recovered quickly. "I notice you didn't say what dark artifacts," he said. The earlier coldness wasn't there, though, and Danny couldn't help but smile.

"Trust me, mate, you don't want to know."

Tom snorted and turned back to the film again, but he was relaxed now, even smiling a little. Job done, Danny reckoned. He let himself sink into the sofa too, suddenly conscious of how wound up he'd been for the last few days. He hadn't even really talked to Hermione outside their planning sessions. It was nice to get the chance to relax at last.

Beside him, Tom stirred. "About that party song we can't get working," he said absently.

*******

Warm, comfortable and safe. There had been very few times in his life when Harry had felt all three of those things, so it was only natural that when he woke up his first thought was that he was still dreaming. His face was still nestled into Dougie's shoulder where he'd given in to the pain again, and he could feel Dougie's arms curled protectively around him. Just the warmth of caring human contact was almost enough to make him cry all over again.

Would his mother have held him like this if she had still been alive, he wondered? Would she have rocked him to sleep against the pain? He liked to think she would. Everything that Molly Weasley had shown him about a mother's love said that she would have been there for him, come what may.

And here was Dougie doing all that for him. Even six months ago, Harry would have laughed in the face of anyone who suggested that Gregory Goyle would make him feel in any way safe. From Ron... from Danny he could have sort of understood it; Danny knew him well enough to know when he needed someone to be strong for him. Dougie didn't know him like that, hadn't known him at all until recently, and yet lying there Harry felt something he hadn't felt for as long as he could remember. He felt cared for.

Harry pulled away slightly, wanting to see so that he could impress this moment on his memory. Dougie stirred, blinking his way towards consciousness. He looked confused for a moment, then he smiled and Harry felt his heart lurch.

"Hey," Dougie said gently, reaching out to stroke Harry's hair. "How d'you feel this morning?"

"Much better," Harry managed to get out. It felt like his grin was splitting his face open. "I feel brilliant. Thank you."

Dougie looked at him, obviously confused. "What for? I didn't do anything."

"Yes you did," Harry said stoutly, daring to reach up and brush Dougie's hair off his face. "You've been you, and you've taken care of me." He shook his head. "I don't know why you even like me."

Dougie looked down in embarrassment, something that made Harry's heart lurch again. "I thought you were this stuck-up little no-one who was getting an easy time from all the teachers. All this shit was happening to you and we didn't believe a word of it, we just tried to make it all worse. I can't make up for that and I can't help with the stuff you and Danny are doing, so this is kind of all I've got left. I'm sorry."

"Don't be, this is great." Harry was certain there was more to it than that. A guilty conscience didn't make you rock someone to sleep, and Dougie wasn't actually guilty of anything much anyway. No, that look, that smile...

"Dougie, I..." Words failed Harry, like they always did. He couldn't explain, was suddenly scared that he was getting it all wrong, that he couldn't possibly measure up, that he was crazy even to think of another guy like that. Facing down Voldemort was nothing compared with facing Dougie right then.

"What? What's the matter?"

It was the concern in Dougie's voice that spurred Harry into action. All that worry for him, the way Dougie pulled him closer, just in case. Come on, he told himself, you're a Gryffindor. This is easy. "Nothing's the matter," he said, and kissed Dougie.

It was _right_. That was all Harry could think of, kissing Dougie was right. Righter than kissing Cho had been, righter even than kissing Ginny and Harry would think about that later, but it was right and that was all that mattered.

Then Dougie pulled away. His look of shock and horror as he scrambled out of bed was a slap in the face to Harry. "No, I'm not, I don't... No!" he shouted and fled from the room.

Harry rolled back on the bed and cursed himself for being an idiot. He had wanted too much — he always wanted too much — and he could only hope that he hadn't broken their friendship beyond repair.

*******

"Oh, thank you."

Hermione Granger sipped at her coffee as Vic sat down opposite her and squashed her thoughts of disloyalty down again. She had been out clubbing several times since that first McFly gig, and she'd found that Harry had been right — every time she had returned to the horcrux hunt with new ideas about where Voldemort might have hidden those bits of his soul. She hadn't particularly meant to, but most times she had run into Vic either on the door or inside, and they had struck up a friendship. Now here they were winding down over a cup of coffee in a cheap late-night cafe, and she found herself wonder whether she was leading Vic on or betraying Ron.

It wasn't like she and Ron were even talking any more, not really. He hadn't ignored her last time, at least, not the way he had when they infiltrated the Ministry. The closeness between them was gone all the same. Ron and Harry still shared a bond, but she didn't understand them any more. The serious young man who had picked apart her assumptions about Gringotts wasn't the cheery, exasperating not-exactly-boyfriend who had gone off to protect Harry all those months ago.

Vic, on the other hand, reminded her very much of the old Ron. He was bigger and bulkier, but apart from that he had the same misplaced protectiveness, was horribly self-conscious around her, and was about as intellectual as doorknob. Which was actually a rather unfair thing to say now Hermione thought about it — she had met some very erudite paintings and objects guarding doorways around Hogwarts.

"You're looking good," she told Vic, desperately hunting around for a safe topic of conversation. "Have you been working out?"

"Kind of," Vic admitted, crossing his arms defensively. "There's more fetching and carrying to the job than I thought, it's not all standing around looking impressive you know. Besides, I don't eat as much now I do my own cooking."

"You can cook?" she asked skeptically.

"Hey, beans on toast counts! Frankie said so."

That was just typical of men, Hermione thought. They had no idea of the damage they did to themselves. Ron would be exactly the same: once he discovered how to fry sausages he'd never eat anything else. It was a good thing he had Harry with him to make him eat more sensibly.

"You really should take better care of yourself," she scolded. "You need plenty of fruit and veg as well as meat in your diet."

"That's easy to say when you still at home."

"It's easy to do on your own, too. You don't have to become Gordon Ramsey to make a casserole. Besides, it's not like you can't visit your parents occasionally for a hot meal."

Vic looked blankly at her for long enough that she wondered if she ought to explain what a casserole was, then shook his head. "I'm not exactly welcome," he said. "They really wanted me to carry on at school, and everyone's still angry at me for skipping out. I'm more likely to be dinner than to get one if I go home."

It was a sore point, Hermione knew from their previous conversations. When she had chattered away brightly about her imaginary A-level courses and hoping to go to university, he had just grunted that he had hated his school and everyone in it, and could they talk about something else, please?

"Do you regret leaving?" she asked softly, placing her hand gently on his.

"No." The answer was quick enough, but the look in Vic's eyes said that he did have regrets. Hermione could understand that; her parents had been magically encouraged to take a long trip to Australia, and she missed them a lot. The Weasleys looked after her and made her feel welcome, but it wasn't the same.

"Besides," Vic continued after a moment, "if I hadn't left home I wouldn't have met you, Jean."

It was a valiant attempt to be chivalrous, and Hermione couldn't help but blush and smile. "And you wouldn't have found a job you enjoy," she said, trying to deflect him.

It worked. "Yeah," he said with a faraway look in his eyes. "I knew it was something I could do, but I never expected people to be so friendly. I mean, I got to toss Taylor out a couple of days ago and people clapped. Can you believe it?"

"Yes, and not just because I've met him," Hermione told him. Hard as she found it to imagine anyone not wanting to be at school, she couldn't argue that Vic wasn't happy working instead. People really were that different from each other, it seemed. In fact now she thought about it, that was part of what they were fighting Voldemort about.

"People like knowing that someone's looking out for them," she said, taking one of Vic's beefy hands in hers. "You obviously care about keeping the club safe, and as long as you don't get big-headed about it everyone will love you for that."

"Wow." Vic looked a bit stunned at that. "I guess I've only really known big-headed people, I never thought of it like that."

"Then you've just proved you're better than they are."

Hermione couldn't help but grin at the enormous smile that comment won for her. It was when Vic squeezed her hand back and she caught herself wondering what it would be like to kiss him that she really knew she was in trouble.

********

Dougie was confused, to put it mildly. He had avoided Harry as best he could ever since _that..._ , but it only made him aware of how he saw Harry all the time. Harry didn't say or do anything to embarrass him, but that only made Dougie aware of how much more withdrawn than normal Harry was. And nobody said anything, but everybody knew there was something off between the two of them.

Dougie didn't know what to do. He wasn't even sure he should be doing anything, seeing as how _it_ was all Harry's fault, but somehow that didn't stop him from feeling guilty about it. He cared about Harry, obviously he did — Harry was important, and if he wasn't in a fit state to take on You Know Who they were all fucked — but he didn't care about him like _that_. He wasn't... he didn't... no.

The house was quiet at the moment, so Dougie decided to sneak down and lock himself in the music room for a bit. When it was just him and his bass, life was so simple. He didn't have to think about complicated things like people, he could just play and let the music do the thinking for him.

Unfortunately, quiet didn't mean deserted. The music room door was slightly ajar, and through it Dougie could see Danny sat at the piano, staring at nothing in particular. Well, that was OK too. Danny had become an OK pianist, which annoyed the hell out of him because Tom had picked up guitar frighteningly quickly, and Dougie still enjoyed jamming with him. He was reaching for the door as Danny turned to someone he couldn't see and said, "Alright, out with it."

"Out with what?" came Harry's voice. Dougie froze in panic, hand inches away from the doorknob.

"If I knew that," Danny said exasperatedly, "I wouldn't need to ask, would I?"

"What makes you think there is anything? Can't I just be..."

"Miserable?" Danny supplied. "I've known you for years, mate. You only get like this when something's going on and you think the rest of us won't understand. When you do get round to telling anyone it's never as bad as you thought, so I'm going to save us all some time and hassle and just ask. Come on, mate, I promise I'll understand. Unless you're getting cold feet about the tour, of course; I'd still understand, but I'd have to kill you."

"Gee, thanks," Harry muttered.

"So?" Danny asked encouragingly.

There was a pause. "I think I'm gay," Harry said in a very small voice. Dougie couldn't help but wince.

Danny's expression didn't change. "And?" he prompted eventually.

"And I'm practically engaged to your sister!" Harry exploded.

Danny blinked. "Oh yeah, Ginny's going to be a bit pissed off about that. She'll come round though, unless you've fallen for me or something stupid like that." He paused, his grin fading a bit as he thought about this. "You haven't fallen for me, have you?"

"Despite your habit of parading around naked, somehow I've managed to resist," Harry shot back. More hesitantly he asked, "You're really OK with this? You're not going to throw a wobbly or anything?"

Danny waved it off. "It was a bit of a shock when I saw Julian snogging the face off his mate, wossisname," he admitted. "I got over it though, and they seemed to be enjoying themselves."

Dougie managed to feel guilty and jealous at the same time hearing that. Guilty for hurting Harry, obviously, and jealous of how easily Danny was taking this in his stride. He wished he could be the same, but just the idea of Harry thinking about him like that gave him the screaming heebie-jeebies.

He shouldn't be listening to this, he thought as Danny started quizzing Harry about who he was crushing on. It was a very un-Slytherin thought — Draco had spent hours drumming into him and Vince that they should shut up and listen when anything interesting was going on, and tell him afterwards — but he didn't want to hear anything about Harry liking him. He particularly didn't want to hear Harry sounding upset when he said it.

Turning around to sneak away, Dougie nearly jumped out of his skin to find Tom standing silently behind him. He managed not to make a noise or start apologising. Tom raised a warning finger to his lips, and to Dougie's further surprise didn't stop to listen either. Instead he turned and padded into the kitchen. Dougie followed him like a scolded child, not sure what to do next.

Tom ignored him to start with, noisily opening cupboards and setting about making himself a sandwich. Dougie tried not to whimper; Tom's sandwiches were works of art that always managed to make him feel hungry. Then he would have to make sandwiches for himself, and somehow they never turned out the way he imagined.

"I don't care what's going on between you and Harry," Tom said abruptly, layering lettuce onto the bread. "Or what's not going on, for that matter," he added off-handedly.

"OK," Dougie replied, not sure where this was going. It would probably be something to do with the band.

"I do care about you playing your best," Tom said, confirming Dougie's suspicions. Dougie grunted his assent, distracted by the tomatoes that were being rapidly sliced and added.

"So I suppose the question is, what do you want?"

The question caught Dougie on the hop. "Uh?" he said intelligently.

Tom sighed, put down the chicken slices and turned to face him. "Since you seem to have been struck dumb I'll take a wild guess; you want to be friends with Harry."

"Uh, yes?" Dougie said tentatively. Standing here and talking to Tom like this, he was suddenly even more confused than normal. When it was just the two of them, he felt like he was being disloyal for wanting to be friends with the others. For wanting friends at all, for that matter.

"Then be friends with Harry," Tom said reasonably, as if Draco wouldn't have had a fit at the idea. As if there weren't other enormous problems with that.

"But I don't want to..." Dougie waved his hand vaguely and trailed off, unwilling to even say the words.

Tom raised an eyebrow, the way that usually meant he didn't believe a word Dougie was saying. Dougie squirmed.

"Then don't do..." Tom said, waving his knife hand in an equally vague if rather more dangerous gesture. He turned back to the sandwich-in-progress. "You don't have to do anything you don't want to do. Harry will get over it."

It wasn't easy for Dougie to think like that. He was too used to following Tom's orders— No, wait, that wasn't right, Dougie realised. He was used to following _Draco's_ orders, but there hadn't been any orders since they'd moved in together. Oh, Tom bossed them around when it came to McFly stuff, but it wasn't the same thing at all. Tom listened when other people had opinions, for starters. Tom actually talked with Dougie, not at him. Tom did a lousy job of sounding unconcerned about how Harry felt, even.

Tom pressed the top slice down and cut the sandwich neatly along the diagonal. "Sandwich?" he offered.

Dougie grinned hugely. "Yeah!"


	7. Chapter 7

Harry slipped past Danny and onto the tour bus. He hated dealing with crowds of admirers, had done ever since the Tri-Wizard Tournament had turned his life into gossip. He was all too keenly aware that the people cheering him one day were just as likely to turn on him the next.

Danny, on the other hand, seemed to love dealing with their fans. Probably, Harry thought grumpily, because they were mostly young and female. Normally Tom would be there with him, so nothing too outrageous would happen. For once Tom wasn't, and Harry was vaguely surprised not to see him on the coach either.

"Where's Tom?" he asked in annoyance. If he delayed the coach much longer they'd be late into Cardiff, and that would wreak havoc with their plans to meet up with Hermione and deal with the next horcrux. Which would be just like Tom if he knew that was what would happen.

Dougie looked up from his magazine. "He's over there," he said, pointing out of the opposite window.

There indeed was Tom, in a quiet corner, talking to a girl Harry didn't recognise. They weren't exactly holding hands, but Harry got the definite impression they weren't far off. The look on Tom's face was exactly the way Harry remembered Ron and Hermione looking when they were being particularly gooey.

"Who the hell is that?" he demanded.

"He does get to have a private life too," Dougie said sharply.

Harry sighed. He and Dougie were just about talking again, which he rather suspected was Danny's work after that heartfelt confession. It was less than he wanted but more than he deserved, and he didn't want to lose that because of a stupid argument. Besides, Dougie was right.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm not looking forward to tonight's expedition and I'm taking out on everyone else. If anyone's due to have something good happen to him, it's Tom."

"Yeah, well," Dougie said uncertainly. Then he grinned. "Then again, I always figured that Tom would only have girlfriends from the very best families."

Harry grinned back briefly, but Dougie's remark set him worrying again. Draco Malfoy had been the snob's snob, and the idea of him chatting with a Muggle girl, never mind looking at her like she was wearing the crown jewels, was right up there with McGonnagal and Snape dancing the tango. Harry couldn't help wondering who she really was as he set to memorising her features — shorter than Tom, with long, dark hair that fell in artful curls around her face.

Finally Tom headed back towards the bus, turning to wave and nearly tripping over his own feet. "He's smiling," Harry observed.

"It does happen," Dougie said, sounding more amused than defensive this time.

"No, really smiling," Harry told him. Something had to be up.

Dougie looked over. "Wow," he said. "I haven't seen him look that happy since, well, I've never seen him that happy. He must really like her."

"That would explain the all the 'I'm so in love' songs he's been writing," Harry mused. He didn't really believe it, but it seemed like the right thing to say. Dougie gave him a dirty look anyway.

By the time Tom extricated Danny from the mini-mob and propelled them both onto the coach, Harry had his paranoia better under control. At least he managed to nod at the others without getting any funny looks off them.

"Right, let's get this show on the road," Danny said enthusiastically, as if he hadn't been the one keeping them waiting. The other groaned.

"So who was the girl?" Harry asked as innocuously as he could.

"And where should we hide the porn stash?" Dougie chipped in, grinning from ear to ear.

Tom had been looking narrowly at Harry, but became a good deal more alarmed at Dougie. "She's just someone I met," he protested.

"Uh huh." Harry didn't need to hide his scepticism. "You were practically holding hands."

"We weren't!"

"And you were grinning like it was Christmas," Dougie pointed out.

"Can't I just be happy once in a while?"

"Tom's got a girlfriend," Danny sing-songed.

Tom threw his hands in the air. "Alright! She's sweet, she's funny, she has great taste in music, and that's as much as I'm telling you."

"Where did you meet her?" Harry asked as the other two crowed their congratulations.

Tom looked at him narrowly again. "Which bit of 'That's as much as I'm telling you' are you having trouble with?"

"The part where she's a Muggle." The words were out of Harry's mouth before he could stop them. Dougie and Danny abruptly stopped their ribbing.

"So suddenly I'm not allowed to like her?" Tom spat.

Well, no. Not the boy Harry had known and detested all those years at school. Tom wasn't that boy any more, though, and Harry kept forgetting just how far he'd come. "It just makes everything complicated," he said as soothingly as he could, "especially while we're hiding out." It sounded weak even to him.

Tom wasn't mollified much. "And you don't want me to give the game away," he said, scowling.

"No, I meant..." Harry trailed off, the death glare he was getting from Tom telling him loud and clear that he could only dig himself in deeper here.

Danny came to the rescue. "You need to be careful for yourself," he said seriously. "You look a lot like you always have. Someone who was looking for missing Malfoys might check you out just on the off-chance."

"Thank you for reminding me that I can't tell her a bloody thing about myself," Tom grumbled. "I'd never have figured that out for myself." He wasn't scowling so much now though, and Harry had to shake his head at how well Tom and Danny understood each other. Ron and Malfoy would have been scandalised.

"I don't want you getting hurt," Danny said firmly. "I don't want the hassle of breaking in a new songwriting partner."

Tom actually smiled at that briefly. "After all these months I think I'd notice a witch trying to chat me up." Which was as near to an apology for snapping as they were going to get, Harry reckoned, and he couldn't blame Tom for looking depressed at being reminded that he was on the run.

"You might that," he allowed. Apology received and understood. It didn't seem to cheer Tom up, so Harry decided to offer him some hope. "After tonight, there's only one more thing we have to do before we start the fight for real."

Strangely this didn't seem to improve Tom's mood any. "So not long before we go back to the Wizarding world and you get to be the Great and Mighty Saviour again," he said without enthusiasm.

It belatedly occurred to Harry that Tom didn't have a lot to go back to any more. Harry wasn't exactly thrilled by the idea himself; assuming he survived fighting Voldemort by some miracle, the fuss and attention that surrounded him just for being born Harry Potter would only get worse. It was so much easier to deal with the fame as just one of McFly. Even Danny, the only one of them who had a girlfriend and a loving family to go back to, seemed to have caught the sombre mood.

It was Dougie who eventually asked the question on all of their minds. "What if we don't want to go back?"

*******

The door to their suite opened much more noisily than Danny had wanted, but by this point he was beyond caring. He had used up what little concentration he had convincing the hotel staff that he and Harry were pissed out of their skulls. If they woke up Tom or Dougie with all their banging about now, that was too bad.

Fat chance of that anyway. The moment they stumbled into the suite Dougie was there, practically grabbing Harry off him. "What the fuck have you done?" Dougie demanded in a scared-fierce way Danny would have teased him about if he'd had the energy.

"Dunno," he replied honestly, wobbling a bit without Harry there to lean on. He still ached from the backlash of destroying the horcrux, and he was more unsteady on his feet than he'd thought when they'd left Hermione. "I didn't let him do the dangerous bit this time. Oh shi—"

Tom steadied him before he could fall, silently slinging an arm around him. Dougie ignored him anyway, trying to keep Harry upright and check him over at the same time. "Harry, what happened?" Dougie asked frantically.

"It's OK," Harry said, smiling tiredly at Dougie. "I just need to rest, that's all." For all he claimed otherwise, Harry clearly wasn't over his crush on Dougie yet. Plus, he was a lousy liar.

"He collapsed when we redid the binding," Danny said. Harry glared at him.

"Fuck!" Dougie looked so distressed that Danny almost regretted ratting out his friend.

"Hey," Harry said, taking Dougie by the shoulder and looking him straight in the eyes. "I'll be OK, really I will. I wasn't expecting it, that's all."

"I... you..." Dougie still seemed to be on the verge of tears. Danny was about to take a half step forward and say something reassuring himself when Dougie threw up his hands, said "Fuck it!" and started snogging the face off Harry.

It wasn't the first Danny had seen two guys kissing. A couple of the crew were gay, not to mention the gig they'd done at G-A-Y, so the sight wasn't exactly new to him any more. All the same, he was surprised at how normal it felt when the two guys in question were his friends. Harry and Dougie seemed to just fit together, as if the surprise was they hadn't always been with each other.

Eventually they broke apart. Danny couldn't help but grin at the identical looks of amazement on their faces. He tried to dig his phone out of his pocket to record the moment for future embarrassment, but couldn't reach it while he still had to lean so heavily on Tom.

Tom, predictably, didn't take the romantic view. "For the sake of my sanity," he said in a pained voice, "will the two of you kindly get a room?"

Danny couldn't help himself. "Yeah, Harry could do with a nice long lie down," he said.

"Not helping," Tom muttered as Dougie had another mini panic and pretty much carried Harry into one of the bedrooms. Danny tried to think of a snappy follow-up, but he was too tired now that Harry was out of his hands. In any case Tom didn't wait for one. He just towed Danny over to the sofa and sat him down with a curt "Stay there." He needn't have bothered saying anything; once Danny was seated, he didn't think he'd ever get up again.

Moments later Tom reappeared and thrust a whisky miniature into Danny's hand. "Splashing out, are we?" Danny asked, grinning tiredly. Tom had spent so much time lecturing them about how much of a rip-off hotel mini-bars were, he was well due a wind-up.

Tom didn't so much as crack a smile. "I need you fit and active on stage tomorrow, not creaking around like some arthritic old woman," he said severely. "What happened?"

"I destroyed it this time."

"I got that far, idiot. Why you? Why did you have to be the one to get chewed up this time?"

"Huh?" Danny struggled to gather his wits. "I thought you didn't want Harry getting hurt?"

"Harry will survive. Harry always survives, it's what he does. You..."

Danny reached out and dragged Tom down onto the sofa before he could start pacing. "I'm not so fragile, mate," he said reassuringly. "I'm not going to die on you or anything."

"You'd bloody well better not," Tom retorted. "You... I can't do this without you!"

The naked fear in Tom's eyes squelched all the inappropriate responses that bubbled up in Danny's head. Instead he pulled Tom into a hug, fully intent on hanging on for as long as it took for his friend to regain his composure.

"First off," he murmured, "you are a bloody amazing musician. You could do anything you want with a guitar in your hand."

"Flattery will get you nowhere," was the tight reply.

"Second," Danny continued, "you aren't the only one this means lot to, you know. I'm not trying to get myself killed here."

Tom pulled back and looked at Danny disbelievingly. "Really?" he asked. "Because I could have sworn you were following the most danger-prone prat in the entire country straight into the heart of trouble."

"Yeah, but I've been doing that for years and I hardly ever end up in the hospital wing any more. Face it, mate, you're stuck with me."

Tom grinned at him, but only weakly. "You say that now, but when all that's left of You Know Who is a pair of smoking boots, what's going to keep you here then?"

Danny blinked. He hadn't thought that far ahead until Dougie had brought it up on the coach, and he had avoided thinking about it ever since. Which was kind of an answer all by itself, now he actually had to think about it.

"Back there I'm just the youngest of my brothers," he said slowly, "or maybe Harry's best friend or Hermione's boyfriend. Out here... we're someone, aren't we?"

"We're some _thing_ , at any rate." The sarcastic tone said that Tom had himself back under control, but he wasn't fooling Danny. He still didn't trust Danny, not quite, not when it came to something as important as the band. Well, that was only fair. Trust was a two-way street, after all.

"They're called horcruxes," Danny said abruptly. Tom looked puzzled. "The things that we're destroying, they're objects that You Know Who stuck a bit of his soul in. He can't die, at least not properly, not until we get them all."

"Should you be telling me this?" Tom asked. He looked a bit overwhelmed now, making Danny all the more certain that he was doing the right thing. If Harry wanted to complain about it, he could do it in the morning.

"Yes, I should. I know this is safe with you. I'm just sorry I was too scared to tell you earlier."

"You, scared? Pull the other one."

Danny flashed Tom a grin. He'd said that to Harry often enough, it was kind of nice to get it himself. "Yeah, these things petrify me. 'Cos they start with a murder, and you feel it when you destroy them." He couldn't help but shudder; the terror and pain of the wizard who had died so Voldemort could pollute Ravenclaw's Diadem was ground into his bones now.

"Fuck," Tom said, horrified. "How many of these things are there?"

"There's just one left," Danny said, dodging the question a bit. There was no sense in letting Tom fret over just how many people had died to make old Snake-Face feel safe. "He made one more, but we're having trouble figuring out what he stuffed it in. We've kind of run out of really significant things as far as he was concerned."

Tom shook his head, then stopped and frowned. "OK, I get why you look like crap," he said, ignoring the finger Danny good-naturedly raised at him. "That doesn't explain Harry, though. What happened to him?"

Danny scowled. "I don't know for sure," he admitted. "He's being all noble and won't say anything, but I bet he knows exactly what's going on. I've got a guess, but I hope I'm wrong." He had fucking well better be wrong; the alternative was just too horrible to think about.

******

"There's a bit of him inside me."

Dougie didn't know what to think any more. Ever since he had set Harry down on the bed and lain down beside him, his emotions had been spinning wildly out of control. At first it had all been fear; fear of losing Harry winning out over he didn't know what really. Harry had beaten that back, making him feel like he was the most treasured person in the world just by holding on to him and trusting him. Dougie didn't understand half of what he'd been told about these horcrux things. The important thing was that Harry trusted him enough to tell him something almost nobody else knew. It was just... Dougie had never felt so bloody amazing.

The kicker, the thing that turned his guts to ice and brought all of the fear crashing back, was that one of those things was stuck in Harry.

"Your scar?" he asked, daring to reach up and touch where that famous lightning bolt shape was hidden in Harry's hair. It even felt puffy and wrong under his fingers.

Harry nodded. "It must have been when he killed my mum and dad. He'd torn so many bits off his soul, it must have just... happened."

"And you've been living with it ever since." It was almost unbelievable. Harry had spent the whole of his life with part of a madman in his head. Just surviving that and still being sane, well, Dougie didn't have words to describe the strength of will Harry must have for that. "Wow," was as best he could put it.

Harry gave him a weak smile that didn't get anywhere near his eyes. "I'm scared," he whispered.

No shit, Dougie thought. He was petrified just hearing about all this, he couldn't imagine living it. "You'll beat him," he said as convincingly as he could, which wasn't very. "You always beat him." He had to beat him.

"No, you don't get it," Harry said. "The only way we can destroy these things is by destroying the items they're in. We have to get the lot of them, otherwise the bastard won't stay dead when we kill him. And one of them..."

One of them was in Harry.

"No," Dougie whimpered. "You can't. You mustn't. You'll figure something out. Or, or Granger will, she's smart."

"Hermione doesn't know. Danny doesn't even know."

"Why haven't you told them? They could help you figure out some way of getting it out without killing yourself."

"It's no good, Dougie, there's no way."

 _"There has to be!"_ The alternative... no, Dougie couldn't face the thought of not having Harry in his life, not now.

"I'm sorry," Harry said softly. He was crying now, and Dougie wasn't any better himself.

"I don't understand. Why didn't you say anything?" he asked. Why tell him now? He wasn't smart or brave or any of the things Harry needed to survive this horror.

"I didn't want them to worry about something we couldn't change," Harry admitted haltingly. "Besides, I didn't have anything to live for then." He tried to smile, and broke Dougie's heart all over again.

Dougie pulled him close, wrapping himself around Harry as tightly as he could. If his magic had been free he would have wrapped Harry in that too, to keep him as safe as he could from outside threats even if he couldn't do anything about the one inside.

"It's not fair," he murmured. "I can't lose you now, I just can't." Harry deserved better than this. He deserved better than Dougie, that was for sure, but the one thing Dougie had learned over the last few months was that life never was fair to Harry Potter.

******

"Jean! Hey, Jean! Over here!"

Hermione smiled and waved at Vic as she hurried over. "I'm sorry I'm late," she moaned. "I thought I'd left plenty of time, but I always forget how long the Tube takes." Actually she'd lost track of time entirely, and had ended up having to apparate in far closer to her final destination than Moody would have approved of.

Vic laughed. "I know what you mean. We've still got plenty of time, though, we aren't that late. And you look great."

"Thank you!" She gave a twirl to show off her dress properly. "You look good too."

He did indeed 'scrub up nicely' as her mother would have put it. She knew that he looked good in the traditional bouncer's black suit, but now he was wearing a nice blue shirt and tight jeans, and he looked positively edible. Hermione would never admit to being like the girls who giggled over the pin-ups in _Witch Weekly_ , but she did have a weakness for fit young men. She had very much enjoyed the attention she had got from Victor Krum, and she was very much enjoying this date—

Her mind screeched to a halt as they followed the crowd into the open air arena, Vic gossipping away amiably. This wasn't a date. Technically, she had intended for it to be a date with Ron when she had bought the tickets. Somehow she hadn't managed to bring up the subject as they had planned the raid on Hogwarts, what with Ron being so focused on doing the job. Afterwards he hadn't been in any condition to listen. He had insisted on leaving as soon as he could walk, not giving her a chance to even mention the tickets, never mind ask him out.

So she had asked Vic instead. It had made sense at the time; they had met at a McFly gig, so going to McFly's end of tour gig together was an entirely reasonable thing to do. Besides, even if it wasn't a date (which it wasn't), and even if Ron never found out (which he wouldn't), it was still something he would have been jealous over (which would serve him right).

"There's still some space up front," Vic said, craning his neck to see over the crowd. "We could get closer if you'd like?"

It would be loud, the crowd would be more enthusiastic, and it would help her not think. Hermione had a feeling she was going to have to do a lot of not-thinking.

"Lay on, MacDuff," she said with a smile. Vic frowned at her, clearly puzzled. "Shakespeare," she explained. "Every thinks it's 'Lead on,' but really—"

"Oh, right, that," Vic interrupted. Hermione wasn't fooled. Vic had exactly the same look that Ron got whenever she had to explain anything obvious.

The nice thing about going out with Vic was that crowds parted for him. He was big and broad, and didn't exactly shove people aside but the effect was much the same, and all Hermione had to do was trail along in his wake. It still took them a couple of minutes to work their way to just in front of the stage, but they made it in good time to shout themselves hoarse as the band came on.

There wasn't much room for dancing, but they managed. It was as loud as Hermione could stand, and the music was as infectious as ever. It was wonderfully freeing, and if she found herself paying as much attention to Vic as to the band, well, he was doing exactly the same thing back to her.

She didn't realise they were holding hands until near the end of one of the slower numbers. Vic was singing along to "All About You" and swung round to face her, and of course she had to face him too. He looked really happy, meaning the words he was singing — it was all about her as far as he was concerned. She looked away in embarrassment, only to catch the eye of Danny up on stage. He gave her a cheeky grin and a wink, as if to say "Go for it." As if he knew a thing about how complicated her life was!

It was impossible, Hermione thought as the song wound down to a finish. Vic was nice, but she already had a boyfriend. It didn't matter how much she liked him or he liked her, she still had Ron. Except that she did like Vic, and it looked like he liked her, and she and Ron had never _said_ anything. She had just assumed, but all the times they'd met since the summer he had been at best distant and indifferent to her. And here was Vic right now, up close and anything but indifferent.

She leaned in tentatively as the last notes died away. Vic leaned in towards her just as tentatively, and almost by accident their lips touched. It was one of the most romantic things that had ever happened to her.

"Aw, aren't they sweet?" said a sharp, vicious female voice from the stage. Hermione looked up to see Bellatrix Lestrange staring down at her.


	8. Chapter 8

Hermione reached for her handbag, but she was far too slow. Bellatrix's body bind caught her before she could even grasp her wand. Her head was still free to move, but the spell held the rest of her body tight.

"What the...?" Vic began. He looked up at the stage to find Bellatrix's wand already pointed straight between his eyes, and cut off with an audible gulp.

"You led us quite a dance, Granger," Bellatrix said pleasantly, her eyes never leaving Vic. "For a child, that is. I knew you'd lead us to your boyfriend eventually."

She thought Vic was Ron, Hermione thought wildly. Bellatrix must have tracked her somehow, and now because she had let her guard down, a poor innocent Muggle was at the mercy of the most psychopathic person Hermione knew short of Voldemort himself. "He's not—" she began, but Bellatrix cut her off.

"Now, where's Potter?" Bellatrix asked slyly. She glanced dismissively at the surrounding Muggles, then cocked a questioning eyebrow at Hermione. Her wand stayed pointing firmly at Vic's face.

"I don't know where Harry is," Hermione said, trying hopelessly to look as honest as she could.

Bellatrix smiled. It wasn't pleasant. "I'm so glad you said that," she told Hermione, and then Vic was on the floor screaming in agony as the _cruciatus_ hit him. "I can keep this up all night, you know," Bellatrix said conversationally.

"Stop it, please," Hermione begged, fighting back the tears. "I really don't know." Bellatrix just smiled some more.

There was a commotion on stage. Hermione saw Danny striding over towards Bellatrix, and her heart sank. Now a _famous_ Muggle was going to get hurt or killed, and it was all her fault. "No!" she cried as Bellatrix negligently tossed a hex in Danny's direction... and Danny deflected it with the wand she hadn't even realised he was holding.

"Hey, don't you know it's rude to torture the wrong person?" Danny asked the surprised witch. He didn't wait for a reply, firing off a stunner Bellatrix only just managed to block.

"Potter!" she spat, and let off a volley of spells in his direction.

Danny laughed as he dodged her attack. "Wrong again, Bella," he goaded her. "Care to try a third time?"

Bellatrix kept up a murderous string of hexes, and Hermione began to worry that for all Danny was getting away unscathed, he wasn't being allowed the time to launch an attack of his own. Then suddenly there was a bellow of _"Stupefy!"_ from across the stage, and Bellatrix hit the ground hard.

"Are you insane?" Hermione heard Tom demand as music started pounding out of the stage speakers.

"Nah," Danny shouted back cheerily, "that's her. Duck!" And then they were off, for all the world like some bizarre Wizarding music video.

"Granger?" Vic was getting back to his feet unsteadily when Hermione turned her head back. He looked at her a little wild-eyed, as if he wasn't sure he really knew her. Which he didn't, and Hermione felt a fresh burst of shame at that. She had never once thought how Vic would feel about her not being who she said she was.

She wanted to go up to him and help him away from this chaos, but the body bind held her firmly in place. All she could do was nod and say, "I'm sorry, I never meant—"

She broke off in amazement as Vic pulled out a wand that couldn't possibly have fitted into his back pocket. There was a moment's panic as he pointed it at her, then she heard him say the counter-curse and was free to move again.

"Who?" she asked uncertainly, getting out her own wand and dismissing her now-useless glamour.

Vic grimaced and gestured, and suddenly Vincent Crabbe was looking worriedly down at her.

Hermione didn't know what to think. Crabbe living like a Muggle, being really pleasant to talk to, and even kissing her? Oh God, she had actually kissed someone who had spend years trying to make her life a misery.

Then she caught movement out of the corner of her eye, and thinking paused while reaction took over. A quick _"Protego!"_ took care of the spell heading for Vic's — Vince's — back, and the Death Eater in the shadows rapidly found himself entangled by the stage-side ropes. At the same time Vince moved past her, casting his own spells. Hermione turned briefly to see the flare of a shielding spell as a hex ricocheted away from a startled concert-goer. The crowd, she thought frantically. They had to protect the crowd!

"There's too many of them," Vince muttered as they stood back to back, busily deflecting stray spells. "I can't cover everyone." Hermione knew him well enough now to hear how worried he was.

"Yes, we can," she said, as something in her researches clicked. "We create wall shields, but flat over our heads like a Roman turtle formation. That should keep anything from stage level getting into the crowd."

"Roman...? Uh, never mind. That's a lot of shield," Vince said apprehensively.

"We can do it if we combine our charms," Hermione said confidently. Supporting each other, they could far more than double the area they covered. Of course they would have to synchronise their casting very carefully...

"You'd trust me to do that?" Vince asked, a strange note in his voice.

Hermione turned to him and smiled. "To keep these people safe? I'd trust you every time, Vince, I know how much you love your job."

The huge grin on Vince's face told her how right she was, not that she needed the confirmation. "Right," he said decisively, "let's do this thing. 3... 2... 1... _Scutus maximus!_ "

******

Harry reacted without thinking when someone just appeared on the stage. His wand, along with the others', was hidden in amongst his spare drumsticks. It had been a matter of pure paranoia back at their first gig, but since then it had been a good luck charm for Harry — when he brought their wands, they played well. A silly superstition, but one that Harry was suddenly glad to have indulged; his wand was out of its holster and the binding ribbon untied before he consciously recognised Bellatrix Lestrange.

Once he did recognise her, Harry knew what he had to do next. He didn't know why Bellatrix was ignoring them, but he used the time that gave him to send Tom, Danny and Dougie's wands spinning towards them. Bellatrix wouldn't have come for them on her own, and there was no way Harry was leaving his friends unarmed.

Getting out from behind his drums took Harry precious seconds. By the time he was clear, Danny and Tom were dealing with Bellatrix. Harry paused and boggled for a moment as he rethought that: Ron Weasley and Draco Malfoy were wiping the floor with one of the most dangerously insane people alive like a well-oiled team of professional aurors.

"What the fuck?" Dougie demanded as Bellatrix went down and "Queen's Greatest Hits" started booming out of the stage speakers.

"Death Eaters. They must have found us somehow," Harry told him, snapping his attention back. "There must be more of them around. Where...?" He caught movement out of the corner of his eye, and just managed to get a shield up in time. Beside him, Dougie swore as more Death Eaters made their presence known, keeping him busy too.

Harry reckoned it was Dolohov he was fighting, though he wasn't too sure. He'd never paid much attention to which of Voldemort's minions was which, and they weren't supposed to be recognisable behind their masks. Whoever it was, the Death Eater contemptuously brushed off Harry's jinx and raised his wand dramatically. " _Avada_..." he began.

Harry cast a rapid spell at his drum kit, and the hi-hat flew towards him. It separated as it came, the lower cymbal rearing up like a shield to block the sickly green bolt of the killing curse while the other scythed on towards the Death Eater. His opponent's _protego_ couldn't entirely stop it, and Harry heard the crack of breaking bone and the Death Eater's muffled scream as the cymbal sped off to embed itself in the stage side. _"Petrificus totalus,"_ he shouted while the wizard was still off-balance, and had the satisfaction of seeing him go rigid and fall.

He was about to shout something sarcastic about keeping a broken leg still when his world exploded in pain. Something had managed to get through his protections and cut his left arm. It wasn't deep but it burned like fire, and it took Harry several seconds to muster enough concentration to numb the pain and seal the wound. He was vaguely aware of Dougie shouting and a furious exchange of magic as he fought to pull himself together.

By the time he looked, it was all over. Dougie grimly faced two Death Eaters, one of whom was sliding down in a crumpled heap at the foot of a speaker stack, while the other knelt on the stage, throwing his guts up. "Goodnight, Dad," Dougie spat, and his stunner knocked the vomiting Death Eater flat. "I hope you choke," Harry heard him mutter.

"Remind me never to get you angry," Harry said as lightly as he could.

"Harry! Are you OK? I'm sorry, it's all my fault." Dougie turned so fast he nearly brained Harry with his outstretched wand.

"I'll be fine, he just winged me," Harry said reassuringly. He cast a quick spell over Dougie's shoulder, animating some cables to keep another pair of Death Eaters busy. "We need to deal with this quickly before things get any worse."

Dougie turned pale. "Uh, I think it might be too late for that," he said, looking upwards.

Harry followed his gaze to see the Dark Mark forming in the clouds above the arena. The skull and snake seem to loom forwards, lit from within by occasional flashes of unnaturally green lightning. Any Death Eater could have cast it, but Harry knew deep in his bones that Voldemort was behind it this time. He was coming for them now.

He should run. They weren't ready to face Voldemort yet, they hadn't destroyed the last horcrux, and Harry still had no idea what to do about the one in him apart from die. They should just apparate away and find somewhere else to hide — but that would mean leaving McFly behind, and leaving the thousands of people here at the mercy of one of the most evil bigots ever to live. Harry couldn't do that, and he didn't think any of his friends could either.

"Cover my back," he said to Dougie, and defiantly cast a spell he had wheedled out of Remus a long time ago. From the tip of his wand a golden fiery phoenix erupted, growing in size as it rose in the sky until it was large enough to challenge the serpent in the Dark Mark. Harry grinned to himself; as Remus had said, if that didn't bring the Order running they were probably all dead anyway.

He didn't dare stare at his handiwork for long, though. Harry looked down just in time to catch another Death Eater before he could blindside Dougie. The others seemed to pull back, giving them a little breathing space.

"Are they going?" Dougie asked hopefully.

"We're not that lucky," Harry told him. He was warily watching the back of the arena where the shadows were thickening. It was like an ink cloud blossoming in the air, steadily growing larger, darker and _deeper_ in some way Harry couldn't explain. Even at this distance Harry could feel the magic of it prickling at his skin.

Then out of the cloud floated Lord Voldemort. He was flying without a broomstick, something Harry had never even heard of a wizard doing before, and he was making it look effortless and stately. Beside him slithered the monstrous Nagini, who would have been crushing the Muggles in the crowd if Hermione's drastically overstretched shield hadn't held up under the strain. All in all, as overwhelming displays of power and mastery went it was pretty damn terrifying.

With a confidence he entirely didn't feel, Harry raised his wand, smiled, and said, "Hello, Tom."

******

It was insane. Fighting for his life on stage in front of thousands of witnesses, when he hadn't so much as touched his wand in months, was pretty much the definition of 'insane' as far as Tom was concerned. He couldn't claim to be above it, either; his very first thought on seeing Bellatrix Lestrange apparate on stage was to get the sound engineers to put a CD on. Insanity was clearly catching.

After that it all descended into chaos so fast that he barely had time to fulminate at Danny. Danny, being a Gryffindor and therefore insane anyway, had laughed it off.

"What the hell made you think I was going to come riding to your rescue anyway?" Tom demanded as they squared off against more Death Eaters. "She is my cousin."

"Draco might have cheered her on," Danny said, momentarily serious, "but Tom Fletcher has never let me down." He paused, then smirked. "Except about cleaning the bathroom."

Tom was about to say something deeply sarcastic about Danny never cleaning the bathroom in his entire life when the Death Eater facing him interrupted. "Malfoy!" he spat, and launched a pair of curses at Tom. Tom blocked the first of them, but could only deflect the second out into the crowd. For one heart-stopping moment Tom thought it was going to maim some of their fans; then the spell bounced off the shield that sprang up, blanketing the area.

"Oh, thank God," Tom said, risking a quick glance down into the crowd. Granger. Of course. And down there with her... Vince? What was he doing here? With her?

"Worried about your Muggle pets, Malfoy?" The Death Eater sneered as he countered Tom's jinx. "You should, because I'll crack your pathetic little protection spell like a nut!"

Tom actually relaxed slightly. The combination of that voice, that build and that much incompetence added up to Vince's father. Tom might not have the highest opinion of his former minion's intellect, but compared to Achaeus Crabbe he was a shining beacon of sanity. "You've never managed to punch through Vince's _protego_ since he learned how to cast it," he said condescendingly, "and he's the one protecting the crowd."

"What?!" Crabbe looked down into the crowd and drew breath to berate his son for being socially responsible. Or something; Tom's "Stupefy!" flattened him before he could say a word.

"How did he ever survive this long?" Tom wondered out loud.

"The stupid, it burns," Danny agreed.

"That's why you spend so much time in the shower, I had wondered."

The Death Eaters had the poor taste to interrupt their banter, and Tom's brief good mood evaporated as they found themselves fending off five opponents.

"We can't keep this up for long," he murmured during a momentary lull.

"We just need to hold on until the cavalry arrives." Danny sounded a lot less chirpy than he did earlier, and if he hadn't been busy deflecting a spell, Tom would have said something about it. "Remember the Alamo," Danny continued.

Tom spent a moment mentally sorting through their diverse DVD collection. "Everybody died at the Alamo," he pointed out.

"Because they didn't hold on until the cavalry arrived," Danny said logically. Tom would have glared at him if they weren't back to back. "What the...? They're backing off?"

The Death Eaters were indeed pulling back. "They can't possibly be leaving," Tom half-asked. There wasn't any reason he could see for their enemies not to press the advantage they so obviously had.

"Fuck," Danny said succinctly. "Their cavalry's arrived."

Voldemort and his fucking enormous pet snake were indeed emerging from the gloom and heading straight for Harry. Harry showed absolutely no sense of self-preservation by just standing there, not apparating away like a sensible person would. Not that Tom could bring himself to abandon their fans either, but there was still the principle of the whole thing; he could at least have looked like he was thinking about it. Instead, Harry smiled as if everything was going according to his plan. If it was going to his plan, Tom would kill him later.

"Hello, Tom," Harry said pleasantly to Voldemort.

"Goodbye, Harry," Voldemort said equally pleasantly, and then they were duelling and amazingly Harry wasn't dying.

That was the remaining Death Eaters' cue to renew their assault. Tom and Danny blocked, dodged and deflected madly, but Tom knew they were only delaying the inevitable. He doubted they could keep the pace up for as much as a minute, and the moment one of them faltered they were both dead.

Tom was trying to think of some last words that weren't "I don't want to die!" when sharp _cracks_ filled the air, and the Death Eaters suddenly found themselves duelling with the Order of the Phoenix.

"See, I told you we just had to wait for the cavalry to get here," Danny said as the number of spells heading their way slowed to a trickle. Overhead his twin brothers shot past on brooms, firing spells at Death Eaters like a pair of X-Wings strafing the Death Star.

"Don't imagine that it's over yet," Tom told him darkly. He might have time to launch a counter-offensive now, but they were a long way from out of the woods. Even if they drove off the Death Eaters, You Know Who still had one — possible two if Danny was right — bits of his soul hidden away. And getting rid of that snake would be no easy feat. Voldemort was bound to have protected the demented thing, which was currently trying to bash through the crowd shield to get at the tasty Muggle snacks beneath.

As if she'd been listening to his thoughts, Tom heard Granger shout, "Of course!" up from the crowd. "The last h... one of _them_ is in Nagini. I can feel it from here!"

"Right." Danny stood tall, all traces of humour abruptly gone. He pointed his wand squarely at the snake and bellowed, _"Sectumsempra!"_

"What? No!" Tom pulled Danny aside as the cutting curse tore apart the stage where he'd been standing. Danny's follow-up _wingardium leviosa_ fared no better, unable to hold the uprooted staging as it got near the snake.

"There's some kind of spell-repeller on it," Tom told him. He had expected as much; You Know Who wouldn't allow his precious pet into a fight unprotected, especially if it contained his last horcrux.

They dived apart as Nagini lunged towards them, making still more of a mess of the stage. Danny shot sparks at the snake in an attempt to distract it. Tom was unsurprised to see the sparks bounce away as they got close, but Nagini still reared back from the sudden bright lights.

"Well, that did something," Danny said as they got back to their feet.

"I suppose it has to see. And hear," Tom commented, noticing that the snake was swaying in time to the bass beat. He briefly wished that the big speakers really did work like the opening sequence of "Back to the Future". He might have been able to knock Nagini across the hall with a well-timed _sonorus_ , except that the magically amplified sound would be reflected like any other spell.

Any other _direct_ spell. If he just funnelled the sound, Tom thought hurriedly, it would still be non-magical sound, just concentrated enough to hurt. "Keep it distracted," he said, dredging his memory for all the sound-related spells he had looked up for Greg all those years ago. Danny obligingly sent a stream of firecrackers towards the snake, flashing and banging enough to make it rear back. Tom saw his chance and cast a half-remembered spell, holding it for as long as he could.

For less than a second, the entire output of a stage speaker stack was focused on a space roughly the size of a football.

Nagini's head exploded.

"Ow," Tom said faintly. His arm was tingling from the effort of steering that much power, and he was a little surprised not to see smoke rising from his wand. Then he screamed in earnest as pain and fear burned their way into him. He felt the murder that had been the heart of this horcrux, the cold malevolence of the snake itself, the victim's agony as power was ripped from his soul. Worst of all, he could feel at least for a moment the pleasure Voldemort had taken in the killing, and just the idea made him want to be sick. It was every bit as wrong as he had known it would be when he had faced Dumbledore on top of the Astronomy Tower, and he never wanted to feel that way again.

He was dimly aware of chaos erupting around him. Again. Harry and Voldemort had paused in their duel, thrown by the pain the destruction of the horcrux put them through too. Danny was shouting desperately, throwing magic like a madman. Tom wanted nothing more than to curl up somewhere and try not to die, but he knew his friends were in trouble and he couldn't leave them.

Grimly, Tom fought for self-control. Danny's hand on his arm helped to ground him, remind him that he wasn't alone in this. He managed to wrench his attention back to the fight in time to see three Death Eaters go down under Danny's furious barrage. Unfortunately two more were gunning for him, and before Tom could get his wand arm working again an _incarcerus_ had them both tightly wrapped in ropes.

"The Dark Lord will kill you slowly," one of them spat, moving forwards to confront the boys. In his current state, Tom couldn't tell who it was.

"Why do you lot always have to be so melodramatic?" Danny complained, clearly trying to goad him into doing something stupid. "It's always 'I will kill you slowly' or 'You will suffer for that,' but here we are still." It worked in as much as the Death Eater sounded furious as he deflected the spells some member of the Order threw at him, but that wasn't going to do them much good, Tom thought. He had a lot to teach Danny about timing his insults.

Then the Death Eater stiffened and fell forwards as his colleague stunned him in the back. "Impressive," said Severus Snape as he removed his mask. "Also incredibly reckless. I expected better of you, Mr Malfoy, than standing out in the open in the middle of a firefight."

"We were having to improvise, sir," Tom objected, irritated no end to have the most spectacular spell he had ever cast so lightly dismissed. Also they had needed to keep the Death Eaters' attention to stop them going after the crowd, not that he was about to admit to such Gryffindorish tendencies in front of Snape.

Arthur Weasley appeared next to them and started to undo the binding. "Give the boy some credit, Severus," he said cheerily.

Snape arched an eyebrow. "Credit for setting a bad example to Mr Goyle?" he asked, nodding at Danny.

Tom glanced over to where Dougie had plastered himself to Harry's back, apparently intent on lending every scrap of power he had. "I disclaim all responsibility for him," he said firmly.

"Thanks, Dad," Danny said as the ropes dropped away. "Come on, Harry needs our help."

"Doesn't he always?" Tom sighed, pausing to enjoy the twin looks of disbelief on Snape and Weasley's faces. Evidently it had never occurred to either of them that the group wouldn't split into Slytherins and Gryffindors.

"You're evil, you know," Danny told him.

Tom smiled. "You say the nicest things."

******

Dougie had been through every emotion he could think of, and had pretty much got stuck on 'numb' now. Everything was happening too fast, and he was too busy doing stuff to have time to think about it.

He had been scared to start with, once he had realised that the Death Eaters had come. He had sworn and got on with it because he didn't want to let Harry down, but inside he had never been so terrified in all his life.

Then he had recognised one of the Death Eaters he was facing as his father, and he hadn't known what to do. Sure, his dad was a monumental arse who would cheerfully have tortured and killed Tom, but he was still Dougie's Dad, and Dougie had hesitated. It was only for a second, but in that second a hex slipped past him and hit Harry.

That had got him angry. He didn't care that it was his dad that he took out with a gut-wrencher jinx, and he certainly didn't care that his stunner blew the other Death Eater clear across the stage; they had hurt Harry, and the only thing he cared about was making them pay.

The person he was most angry with was himself, of course. If he hadn't frozen, if he hadn't been such a fucking idiot, it would never had happened. Harry had just brushed it off, but Dougie couldn't forgive himself so easily. That was what kept him at Harry's side when You Know Who showed up in person, for all the good he was. His spells about as effective against the Dark Lord as a hitting a dragon with a water-pistol, even once help arrived and the half a dozen wizards trying to kill him personally had other things to worry about.

Dougie had never felt more useless. He knew the prophecy said that Harry had to be the one to fight You Know Who, but it could at least have let him help. He wasn't even much cop at keeping Death Eaters away from Harry, not after V... You Know Who told them to leave Harry alone.

Then Harry and Voldemort — there, he'd thought the name! — then they had stopped in mid-duel and screamed. Dougie wasn't sure exactly what had happened, but he twigged fast enough that the last of those horcrux things must have been destroyed. He grabbed hold of Harry without having to stop to think, because he knew what that did to him. He had promised himself that he would do anything he could to help Harry, and here at last was something he could do. Quietly, he cast _potestatis mutuatio_ and said, "Borrow whatever you need from me, Harry."

It wasn't like borrowing from Tonks. For one thing he had been doing the borrowing then, and all he had felt was a vague sense of Tonkness. Dougie had no idea whether it was because he was lending this time, or because he knew Harry like the back of his hand, but either way it was as different as could be. He could feel Harry not as some fuzzy presence but as raw _Harry,_ determinedly pulling himself together again. He was just like Dougie had come to understand: pure power and caring that couldn't believe anyone cared about him. That he was worth caring for.

Dougie could also feel Voldemort. At least there was a twisted, bitter _something_ that was fighting Harry for control. It was horrible. Dougie couldn't imagine living like that, but Harry had spent his whole life putting down this corrosive thing.

He took a deep breath and thought of how much he l—, damn it, he could think 'Voldemort', so he could think this. How much he _loved_ Harry. How much he wanted to protect him, show him that he wasn't just worth it, he was so much more. That he mattered to Dougie because he was Harry, not The Boy Who Lived.

Dougie leant his forehead against the back of Harry's head and poured everything he had into the spell. He wrapped his magic around Harry just like his arms were wrapped around Harry's body, forcing himself between Harry and the thing clawing at his soul.

It hurt. It hurt worse than Dougie had thought possible, and he almost broke and ran. If it hadn't been Harry, if he couldn't feel Harry rallying and taking the fight back to Voldemort, Dougie would have apparated as far away as he could and thrown up. As it was he hung on grimly, doing his best to stop the horcrux-thing from distracting Harry. It was not going to have any chance of taking over Harry's body while he had any say so.

The next few minutes were a blur of shifting power that Dougie never could clearly visualise. He thrusted, blocked and parried as if he was duelling, except without really casting any spells. Perhaps Tom could have explained what was going on, but Dougie didn't think like that anyway. He just reacted, doing what he could. Then power flooded into him, and everything became easier for a while. He could feel Tom's cool analytical nature and Danny's cocky self-assuredness, both tinged with panic but both backing him to the hilt. Both trusting him to take the lead with Harry, and that was such a huge thing that Dougie almost slipped up and let the horcrux get at Harry briefly. Almost, but only the once; with his friends' help he could handle everything it threw at him and still offer Harry power to draw on.

Then that draw became an urgent drain. Dougie was dimly aware that Harry and Voldemort's wands had locked together, and the contest of skill became a contest of raw willpower. The horcrux-thing went berserk, metaphorically clawing and biting at Dougie in a suicidal attempt to distract Harry. It was kind of stupid really; it would die too if Voldemort's killing curse reached Harry. They probably all would — Dougie certainly didn't fancy his chances given that he was so close to Harry as to be practically in his body.

In Harry's body...

It was a stupid idea, but Tom's intelligence thought it could work, and Danny's courage said to go for it. Dougie spent a moment wrapping himself more tightly around Harry, then he drew on his friends and _pulled_.

Suddenly, just as Dougie hoped, Harry wasn't in his body any more. The bit of Voldemort's soul in him leapt to take control as the real Voldemort's curse hit. Voldemort and Harry — Harry's body, anyway — both screamed, and an evil blackness came boiling out of Harry before melting away like a bad smell.

Dougie didn't wait. He pushed Harry back into his body, praying that the killing curse worked the way Tom thought it did. Harry's body had just stopped when the horcrux was destroyed, and they hoped it would pick up as Harry went back in. Dougie didn't hold anything back, pouring everything he had into reconnecting Harry with his body. It wasn't enough; there was too much to do too quickly, he was stupid to even think he could bring someone back, but he wasn't going to give up because if Harry was dead he didn't care any more. He felt himself faltering, failing, then Tom and Danny were there too, throwing everything they had into jump-starting Harry's body.

It seemed to take forever, but it couldn't have been more than a few seconds before Harry was back in charge of himself, heart beating in a strong, driving rhythm that sounded almost like Harry's drums to Dougie. The three exhausted wizards staggered back, leaving Harry standing unsteadily tall.

"It's over, Tom," Harry said to Voldemort. "That was the last of them, you haven't got any second chances left. You can end it now. Please."

Voldemort started at Harry as if he couldn't believe the insect had the temerity to speak. "I can end you, child, and end the prophecy with you. _Avada kedavra!_ "

" _Expelliamus!_ "

The last triumphant notes of "Don't Stop Me Now" died away as the spells rebounded off each other in a blinding flash of green light. Harry was knocked back into Dougie's arms, his wand flying into the wings. Voldemort simply fell to the stage, once again a victim of his own killing curse. There was silence as his body crumbled to dust and blew away on the wind.

Then the crowd went wild. To Dougie's shock and delight they shouted and cheered and clapped and stamped, leaving no doubt about their approval for what had just happened. Dougie had never felt so exhausted before, but with the reception they were getting he had never felt so exhilarated either.

"I think they like you," Tom said, smiling crookedly.

"I think they like _us_ ," Harry correctly firmly.

"Who wouldn't?" Danny said, quietly summoning Harry's wand before it could get lost.

Harry took it back, then turned to Dougie. "That was the most brilliant, stupidly dangerous bit of quick thinking I've ever seen," he said. "You saved my life. Thank you."

Dougie shuffled his feet. "I..." He didn't have words for what he felt, all the love and fear and relief rolled into one. All he could do was smile so much his face hurt, and hope Harry understood.

Harry understood all right. On stage, in front of thousands of their fans, he kissed Dougie. The cheer from the crowd was deafening.

By the time Dougie got his brain and breath back, Tom had grabbed one of the stage mics. "Let's hear it for our stunt men and special effects wizards!" he shouted, giving the crowd another excuse to scream themselves hoarse. On stage, the members of the Order who hadn't disapparated with captive Death Eaters froze.

"What's he doing?" Kingsley hissed.

"Working the crowd," Danny explained, grinning like a maniac.

"He told them we were wizards," Mr Weasley said worriedly.

"They won't think we're real wizards," Harry reassured him. "By the time he's finished, they'll all agree this was the best show they've ever seen. He's very good at this."

"He's the best," Danny disagreed.

Mr Weasley looked at him oddly. "Are you sure you're alright, son?" he asked, as Tom chivvied Vince and Granger up on stage to take their bows.

Dougie grinned and leaned into Harry. "Just smile and wave, Mr Weasley," he said. "It's all brilliant."


	9. Epilogue

"...It is therefore also my great pleasure to award the Order of Merlin, First Class, to Draco Malfoy, Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle." The Minister sounded a lot less enthusiastic than he had when he award Harry, Hermione and himself with their medals, Danny thought. He managed not to glare at the man too much, not wanting to spoil Tom's moment of Wizarding glory. Glamoured like they all were to show his original face, Tom might look as if this was all beneath him, and Dougie and Crabbe might look like they were going to die of embarrassment, but Danny knew this meant the world to them and he wasn't going to let anything ruin that.

His brothers were still having a hard time with that one. The first time they made a snide remark about Malfoys and Muggles, and Danny turned round and ripped them a new one, had been a joy to behold apparently. Tom had enjoyed it, at least. He had enjoyed it much less when George gave him a calculating look and asked if this meant Draco was family.

The polite round of applause died away, and Harry was thrust reluctantly to the front of the stage. "I'm not good at speeches," he said after casting a quick _sonorus_ , "so I'll keep this short.

"It took a lot of people to defeat Voldemort. I was the one standing at the front, but if any one of the people up here with me hadn't been so amazing, or any of the dozens of others who aren't up here, it would all have gone very differently.

"But that's not Voldemort's real defeat. That is Draco, and Vince, and Greg." Danny looked at the Slytherins fondly; he had some idea of what was coming even if they didn't. "These three guys were fed Voldemort's propaganda about Muggles their whole lives. Then, well, they found out what Muggles are really like. I'm incredibly proud to say that they threw away those prejudices when they saw the amazing things Muggles do without magic. Things we can learn from. Things we," Harry gestured to Danny and the others, " _have_ learned from."

There was a slightly confused cheering and a smattering of applause as Harry stepped back and slung his arm around Dougie's waist. Dougie, like Crabbe, looked horribly embarrassed to be praised like that. Tom was wearing the patented Malfoy this-is-only-my-right-and-due smirk, but Danny wasn't fooled; he was just as proud and off-balance as the others.

"You weren't kidding when you said you suck at speeches," Tom murmured as they waved from the platform.

"Fuck off," Harry said good-naturedly.

"Can we get out of here now?" Danny asked. It sounded a bit more like a whine than he had intended, but frankly he was bored. He had expected to be excited by getting his medal in front of a crowd of wizards, but compared with doing a gig it didn't feel like anything special.

"We've barely got an hour before we're due on stage," Tom agreed. He had been particularly vociferous about the Minister's choice of time for the award ceremony. Not that Danny had been any happier.

Harry looked across to where Kingsley Shacklebolt was standing in his full Head Auror robes. Kingsley nodded to him and moved over to where the Minister was taking the opportunity to deliver some more platitudes to the crowd.

"It's covered," Harry said. "Let's get out of here. All of us," he added, looking at Hermione and Crabbe.

They apparated straight into their dressing room. "Thank God for that," Tom said, quickly dismissing his glamour. "I thought it was never going to end. It was even worse than the Music Awards."

Danny was going to point out that they hadn't even won anything there, but a new voice spoke first. "Tom? How...? What...?"

Tom froze for a moment, then turned to stare at his girlfriend. His mouth opened and closed a few times, but a panicked squeak was all that came out. A year ago, Danny — Ron — would have thought that was hysterical.

"You were going to have to tell her some time," Dougie offered tentatively.

"Who are these people?"

Oh, right, they were still glamoured. That finally kicked Danny into doing something. He cancelled his own illusion with a flick of his wand, and let her take that in for a moment. "He's a wizard. We're all wizards." Hermione nudged him. "And witches."

She looked at them thoughtfully as Dougie and Harry dropped their spells too. "Those special effects at your last gig?"

"They were for real," Danny told her. "The last fight of a war most people never knew about."

"Which makes him a war hero," Harry said helpfully, clapping Tom on the shoulder. Tom scowled at him. "Go," Harry told him, ignoring the black look with practiced ease. "Talk to your girl. We'll still be here when you get back, however long you take."

For once, Tom didn't argue. He led his girlfriend over to a quiet corner, and the look on his face... Danny had to look away. The last time he had seen Tom look so open and vulnerable had been their first night in the Muggle world, when he had played his heart out.

"You should talk too," Harry told Danny firmly. He glanced at Hermione and Crabbe, clearly including them.

"You just want some alone time with your boyfriend," Danny leered. He was just trying to distract Harry, he knew that much. Ever since Voldemort's destruction he had managed to avoid talking to Hermione, but he still wasn't sure why.

Harry saw straight through him, apparently. "I've got a future thanks to the guy I want to spend it with," he said, making Dougie go even redder with pleasure and embarrassment. "I think you need to figure out what you've got and what you want, Danny." With that, he and Dougie left to find their own private spot. Probably to make out until they were due on stage, Danny thought glumly.

"So," he said, turning reluctantly to the others.

Hermione looked like she was ready to cry. "I'm so sorry," she said. "I never meant to hurt you."

"Yeah," Crabbe added, "if I'd known she was her and you were you..."

"You weren't supposed to know," Danny reminded him. "I'd be a lot more worried if you had known. And 'Mione, I'm sorry too. It's not like I made a lot of effort to talk to you this last year."

"It's not like you had a lot of chance," Hermione disagreed. "We couldn't have risked it, Ron."

"Danny," Danny corrected automatically. The last thing they needed was someone else getting wind of McFly not being who they said they were. Harry's original identities had never been intended to stand up to much scrutiny, and while the Order had put a lot more work in once they made it clear that the band was going to carry on, it wasn't something Danny really want to test.

"Oh!" Hermione said, a sudden look of understanding crossing her face. She repeated it in such a small, pained voice that Danny got pretty alarmed. He looked at Crabbe, who seemed to have no better idea than he did of what was going on.

"Oh?" he asked.

"You really are Danny Jones now," Hermione said sadly, as if that explained something.

"You mean like he's not Ron Weasley?" Crabbe suggested tentatively.

Hermione nodded, flooring Danny. "Danny has his music and the band, this whole different world," she explained, gesturing at the dressing room. "I haven't been part of that. In fact I've only really got in the way of it, haven't I?"

Danny opened his mouth to deny it, but he couldn't. She was right; every time she had summoned them back to deal with a horcrux, he had resented being dragged away from McFly.

"The whole point of you becoming Danny was to hide from the Wizarding world," Hermione continued inexorably. "I don't have a place here, not after this time."

"You could have," Danny tried gamely.

Hermione shook her head, clearly not believing it any more than Danny. "I missed my chance," she said. "And to be honest, I love magic too much."

Danny didn't even try to deny it this time. He had grown up with magic, but music made him alive. Hermione was part of the magic, and he loved her dearly, but she wasn't part of the music. Not in the ways that mattered to Danny anyway.

"I'm sorry," was all he could say. "I never meant to hurt you either."

"I know," she said, near to tears.

Crabbe made an abortive move towards her. Danny tried to summon up the old jealousy he'd felt when Viktor Krum had tried it on with Hermione, but it just wasn't there any more. She wasn't his girl, or rather he wasn't her Ron, it seemed. Crabbe... was there.

"Do you care about her?" he asked impulsively.

Crabbe looked down and shuffled his feet, just like Dougie did whenever he was the centre of attention. Then he glanced across to Hermione and straightened. "Yeah," he said defiantly. As if he had to fight Danny for her.

As if he had to fight Ron for her still, Danny realised. It would take him no effort at all to guilt Hermione into ditching Crabbe, if she wasn't already doing it to herself. He could keep doing it, keep her single until she hated him, if he really wanted.

But what he wanted was for her to be happy, to have someone who made her happy. Someone who had stood up for her, who had trusted her even when she had had to keep things from him, who had followed her lead through the storm. Someone who was the devoted brawn to her brains, and if Danny didn't stop quickly he was going to have a really soppy set of lyrics on his hands.

"You always bring out the best in us," he said a little sadly, and hugged the pair of them. They froze for a moment, then awkwardly hugged him back.

"Don't be strangers," he said when they eventually let go. "You know Mum will always have a place at the dinner table for you."

"You look after yourself too," Hermione said, wiping away a tear. "I'm not going to stop worrying about you."

Danny laughed. "I'll be alright," he said. "Harry and Tom are a right pair of mother hens, they don't let me get away with anything." More importantly, Danny noticed that Hermione still had hold of Crabbe's hand. She really was happy with him, weird as that seemed.

"Go on, off with you," he said, still grinning. "Go and enjoy yourselves while the rest of us prepare for a hard evening's work." Go and make her happy, he thought silently.

They both laughed and headed for the door. "I hear there's a concert on tonight," Hermione said with fake innocence. "The band's supposed to be quite good."

Crabbe appeared to consider this. "Do you think they have any tickets left?" he asked, then pulled a couple of crumpled pieces of paper out of his pocket. "Oh, wait, here's a couple. My treat this time."

Hermione's smile was big and genuine, and even though Danny felt a twinge of pain that it wasn't directed at him, it still cheered him immensely. "Hey," he called to them, "after this you two get comps for life. Never know when we might need some help with crowd control."

Crabbe's — Vince's — awed face was all the confirmation Danny needed that he was doing the right thing. "You earned it, and then some," he said, forestalling the thanks he could see coming. "Now shoo, we really do have to get ready to go on."

He watched as Vince all but dragged Hermione out of the dressing room in his enthusiasm, then turned to where the others were still deep in... conversation.

"Right, boys and girls, we've got a gig to put on."


End file.
